


Brand New Skin

by fishscalepanties



Category: Batman (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Catlad - Freeform, Catlad!Tim, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-11-23 23:42:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 34,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/627834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishscalepanties/pseuds/fishscalepanties
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim Drake has lost everything. His father, his best friend, his mentor, and his mantle. He loses himself, until help comes in the form of a woman with a soft spot for Strays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Everything To Nobody (but me)

Tim felt the skin over his knuckles tear as he ruthlessly beat his fist against the face of a man he was now holding up by the collar of a bloody sweatshirt.  
  
He had caught the man just as he had torn open the shirt of a screaming woman in a back alley.  
  
Tim’s reaction had been immediate.  
  
Wearing nothing but a rain-soaked hoodie, he shoved the offender against the wall beside the woman, her screams stopping long enough for the crack of bone against brick to be audible against the rain.  
  
 _“Run.”_ The word had come out as an order, his voice hoarse and used. Fresh fear flashed across the woman’s eyes as she appraised Tim’s slouched form and hooded eyes. She ran.  
  
Which left Tim alone with her gentleman-friend.  
  
“I don’t want no trouble...” He stammered out, holding the spot on his temple where the skin had been scraped off. Tim crushed the urge to quip back at him. Clumsily, the man lashed out with a punch and a yelp. Tim caught his hand mid-strike, and twisted hard.  
  
The man screamed in pain.  
  
Tim did not flinch.  
  
He gave the man a good shove back into the wall, ensuring that his now dislocated shoulder was the point of contact. He screamed again, and then sobbed out,  
  
“Who are you?” Tims eyes burned, and he heard his blood pumping hard and slow in his ears.  
  
“Me?” He chuckled without humour. “I’m _nobody_.” The man tried to stand, to escape. Tim wasn’t having that.  
  
His training had rendered these motions remote. Robotic. The only thought crossing his mind as he thoughtlessly punished the man was the broken record that had been cracking his sanity for weeks. Nobody.  
  
“That’ll do, Kitten.” Tim’s head jerked up, shoulders stiffening, completely forgetting the badly beaten man beneath him.  
  
His eyes narrowed at the sight of Catwoman, leaning forward on the lowest level of the fire escape above him. Her goggles were rested on the peak of her head, her eyes looking down on him and filled with something between curiosity and concern. “Now come along.” She turned and left up the fire escape, lithe as she had always been, expecting him to follow.  
  
He did.  
  
*        *        *        *  
  
Selina had a broken bird on her couch.  
  
She had run peroxide over his split knuckles, but he was broken far deeper than shallow skin. She could see it in the way his bright blue eyes held no colour, no light. In the way he had let her pull his hoodie off like it was a single layer of protection that was failing, just like all his others.  
  
So Selina had sat him on the couch, and gone to make tea.  
  
“Earl Gray. Do you want anything in it?” Tim, as she remembered, was sitting with his hands folded in his lap. His eyes flickered up to hers with a measure of uncertainty.  
  
“No.” Before she turned, he added, “Thank you.” A small smile teased at her lips.  
  
She brought the tea out in fine china mugs, handing one to Tim, and curling up on the wide-backed chair across from where he sat. He sipped idly at the tea for a moment, and she studied him.  
  
“Tell me the story, Baby Bird.” Something akin to anger flashed in his eyes, just a little too lonely to reach the point of rage.  
  
“I’m not a bird.” The spitting tone he had aimed for failed miserably, and he sounded just that; miserable. “Why were you in the alleyway?” He met her question with his own, voice even.  
  
“I heard the scream on my way home.” She answered honestly. She did what she could for her neighbourhood. Gotham was bad enough to necessitate the help of thieves in it’s plight, and sometimes, she obliged her fight to the side of the civilian. Tim simply nodded, and continued to nurse his tea. “Tim.” His name caught his attention fully, his eyes meeting hers with force.  
  
“What’s happened?” Tim calmly set down his teacup, pushing the heels of his hands against his eyes before responding,  
  
“I got fired.” His voice was plain, a practiced monotone. Selina’s eyebrows flew to her hairline.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Dick is Batman now.” She couldn’t imagine a reason Dick’s first move as Batman would be to banish his brother, his Robin. “And Batman’s word is law in the cave. He’s chosen a new Robin.”  
  
Selina choked on her tea.  
  
 _“Damian?!”_  
  
“Yes. _He needs it.”_ Tim’s lip twitched up as he quoted Dick in a mocking tone. “I’ve lost it all.” He admitted to her almost inaudibly.  
  
“My best friend is dead.” She remembered when word of Superboy’s death had reached her ears. He’d saved the world, but not himself.  
  
“My father is dead.” Jack Drake, after so many years spent ill, had finally passed. The socialites of Gotham mourned with their fake tears and toasts.  
  
“Bruce is dead.” This stabbed at Selina, the pain of Bruce Wayne still fresh in her as well.  
  
“I have no title. No name to wear. No purpose.” Tears were beginning to spill over.  
  
“I have nothing. I _am_ nothing.”  
  
Selina’s heart broke for the boy on her sofa. She knew what alone felt like. Truly, deeply, honestly alone.  
  
“Where are you staying?” Her voice came very quiet. Tim looked her in the eyes as tears continued to slip down his cheeks.  
  
“A-a motel, down on 87th. I'm welcome at the manor, but I don't belong there anymore.”  
  
“You can belong here, if you are willing to share. And you have me.” She spoke firmly, pinning him with her eyes. He choked on a sob. One of her cats, Olivia, bumped his hand. He reached out, gently stroking her black fur. Olivia began to purr, and climbed onto his lap.  
  
“I’ve always liked cats.” He whispered, the smallest of smiles spreading across his face.  
  
Selina smiled in return, the familiar feeling of warmth filling her chest, as it did every time she picked up a stray.  
  
*        *        *        *        *  
  
Tim was as quiet as a cat, and even with his moving in and living with Selina for nearly three weeks, his tread was still careful. Slowly, very slowly, her Kitten was coming out of his shell.  
  
He cooked for them both if he woke first, which he near always did.  
  
He never left without telling her first.  
  
He was kind to each of the four cats wandering the apartment alongside him, being watchful to feed them when hungry, and give them all equal attention. They say you can tell the true face of a person by the way they treat an animal.  
  
Olivia in particular had fallen for the boy.  
  
Selina heard him in his room some nights, muttering in his sleep, until he woke himself by accident. He would then wander into the living room, and quietly play with the cats, whispering to them and himself all at once.  
  
He was an odd boy, and Selina’s heart ached for him no less than it had that first night.  
  
Now, Selina was a tactile person.  
  
The first time she had touched the boy’s shoulder, passing him in the kitchen, he had flinched. She hadn’t moved her hand. Over a few days of perpetual, gentle contact, his jumps lessened into nothing, and after a few days more, his lack of reaction turned into his slight leaning into the contact.  
  
His smiles were still small, and sad, but becoming more frequent.  
  
She found the things he enjoyed.  
  
He liked watching jeopardy while they ate take-out on the sofa. He might have his laptop or a book open, but he would answer nearly every question semi-mindlessly.  
  
He liked knowing where she went before she left. He had asked quietly on his third night, and after that, she told him every time.  
  
His name was Timothy Jackson Drake, but his full name brought a darkness to his eyes that worried her. She called him Tim, or Kitten, which he didn’t seem to mind.  
  
She had learnt the look on his face that meant Dick was trying to get ahold of him. He had been steadily texting clipped answers as a response, re-assuring his oldest brother that he was unharmed, even though the man had hurt him so badly.  
  
Selina was indeed growing fond of her newest Stray. He was very slowly working his way into that hole that so many years of theft and solitude had left in her chest. Brief bursts had filled that hole, only to leave it deeper in the wake of treachery and death.  
  
She sat opposite of him at the small kitchen table, as he ate and read at the same time. A fantasy book, she saw. She would pick some up next time she went out, and line the shelves with them. The observant boy would notice their appearance, of course. He was sharper than a tack.  
  
Tim had spent an abundance of time reading in the last weeks. Reading and clicking softly on the keys of his computer. The question slipped unbridled from her lips.  
  
“So when are you getting back out there?” Tim’s eyes went wide, and he met her gaze with food hanging from his mouth. He was quite adorable when he went unchecked. He swallowed loudly, and put his book face-down on the table.  
  
"I, I don't, I can't-" The look in her green eyes became keener. She spoke honestly, setting down her tea cup with a soft clink.  
  
" _Tim_. You were born for those rooftops. And you're kidding yourself if you’re telling anyone otherwise." A note of finality hung in the air as she said it.  
  
“I...” Tim paused, meeting her eyes with the crisp blue of his own. “I’ll think about it, and get back to you?” He tried for a smile. It kind of worked.  
  
“Fair enough.”  
  
It wasn’t until the next morning at breakfast that he cleared his throat, a touch awkwardly, before stating plainly,  
  
"You're right. About the rooftops.” She smiled widely, opening her mouth to tell him she was proud, but he raised a solitary finger. “But I'm not a bat anymore." One of her eyebrows shot up, questioning.  
  
“And?” She prompted after a long moment of silence. Tim seemed to gather himself, before rushing out,  
  
“I think I'd like to work with you. If you'll have me." He was standing with his arms crossed loosely in front of the sink. Selina was too taken aback to respond at first. For a very whole minute, there was nothing but noiselessness. Tim’s eyes were still meeting her own, but that note of brokenness were working back in around the edges of his gaze.  
  
"Oh, _Kitten_." She whispered gently. For a very clipped second, it looked as though Tim might burst into tears. She stood up very swiftly, and made short the distance between her and Tim.  
  
Selina wrapped her arms around him, in a very maternal manner, and pulled him into a tight hug. She elected to ignore the surprised squeak that came from Tim.  
  
There was a beat before Tim extracted his arms from where they were pressed between them and returned the hug. When Selena pulled away, she held him at arms length, the two of them about the same height, and told him frankly,  
  
"I think we'll make a great team."  
  
This time, it was Tim who hugged Selina.


	2. Hoods and Family Affairs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stray has his first run-in with someone who has only ever known him as Robin. Or rather, Replacement. Tim is beginning to change, and he thinks its for the better.

Bruce had always said that Catwoman was morally gray. There was the black of Gotham’s criminals to their just white, and Catwoman was somewhere in the middle.  
  
It was a far less abstract concept when Tim just _asked_ Selina.  
  
“The Bats fight for Gotham.” She shrugged. “We _Cats_ fight for ourselves.”  
  
Tim liked the idea of helping himself, for once.  
  
Which was what had led him to this particular safe, in this particular house, on the two month anniversary of the morning Selina said _yes_ , and he graced Gotham’s roofs once more. He was clad in his suit, a single, thick piece of leather-like material that they had _misappropriated_ from Wayne Tech. It was extremely tight, and opened with a single zipper up his chest, which had taken some getting used to. The flexibility of this was far better than any other costume he had donned. As far as protection went, Selina’s only comment had been,  
  
“Try to avoid bullets.” A little more research on his part had told him that the fabric was tensile, but reinforced. It could stop glancing shots, and even some calibers when fired straight for the wearer, but wasn’t as conducive to armour as it was to agility, and wouldn’t help so much with the repercussions of bullets. Broken ribs were to be watched out for. It was woven in a way that made it very difficult, but not impossible to cut.  
  
His whip was hung on his utility belt, surprisingly easy to use, even more so after he got used to it. His goggles were pulled down, orange lenses shielding his eyes.  
  
This safe had been hard to track down, but was supposed to contain a very worthwhile piece of information, not yet accessible in any way on the internet. The final piece in the intricate web of files he had been gathering to sell, a neat little group in need of completion.  
  
Finding the safe had definitely been the hardest part, but alas, his searches had led him to a run-down apartment in crime alley with more locks on the door than any resident of the building could feasibly afford.  
  
Tim was focused on the gentle rhythm of the lock, waiting for the subtle irregularity of the tumblers fall. He was not so focused that he didn’t hear the heavy footfalls in the hall outside.  
  
He leapt to the feet, and sprinted to perch on the sill of the window at the same time somebody kicked in the door.  
  
He was preparing to make himself completely scarce when he heard the click of a safety and a rough voice telling him,  
  
“Freeze.” Tim turned slowly, with both hands raised, a feat that didn’t begin to test his new balance.  
  
The Red Hood was standing in the empty apartment, two handguns raised and pointed squarely at Tim’s chest. He sighed wearily.  
  
“Catman?” Jason quipped lightly, voice still meant to be intimidating. “Sorry, kid, that isn’t a new gimmick.”  
  
“Save it, Jason.” Tim spoke starkly, hopping softly of the window’s edge.  
  
“I will shoot you.” Jason sounded shaken, probably at hearing his own name. Tim just sighed a second time.  
  
“No you won’t.” Before any bullets could be fired in his direction, Tim pulled his goggles off of his eyes and onto his forehead, crossing his arms and popping a hip before looking Jason in the-where-his-eyes-would-be.  
  
“ _Holy shit._ ” Was the response Jason offered. Tim chuckled dryly, waiting for the commentary. There was a long pause, in which Jason lowered both of his guns, before holstering them securely. He then pulled off his red helmet, a vast improvement from the cape-and-dildo he had been donning before.  
  
"Well, I guess I can’t call you Red Replacement anymore. Had to go ahead and just carve your own path, didn't you." Jason snorted at his own joke.  
  
"It's Stray now." Jason appraised him deftly.  
  
“Steal the shit, Stray, I came for it too.” Tim just raised an eyebrow.  
  
“Well, you interrupted me. And we both know I’m not opening that box without the assurance that I’m walking away with its contents.” This time, Jason laughed loudly.  
  
“Have at it, Timmers, I was just going to give it away anyways.”  
  
So Tim opened the safe, fighting the distraction of Jason’s incessant foot-tapping. After the door finally slid open, and Tim took the USB in hand, he pinned Jason with a glare.  
  
“Is there a reason you stuck around? Or was it just for the show.” Jason smirked.  
  
“Well that costume is pretty tight...” Tim rolled his eyes with enough force to cause him pain. Jason raised his hands in the air as a sort of surrender. “I’m kidding, little bro, don’t give yourself a stroke.”  
  
“Jason.” Tim restated, with even more annoyance. “What. Do. You. Want.”  
  
“To grab some pizza and have a chat, of course!” Tim’s jaw fell, Jason’s motives honestly being the last he expected. “There has to be a story behind all of his.” He gestured wildly at Tim’s black-clad figure.  
  
*        *        *        *        *  
  
At least Jason had the decency to let him change before they went to the 24-hour chain pizza place a few blocks north of Crime Alley.  
  
Tim had explained everything to Jason around mouthfuls of greasy food, with an honesty he and his more distant brother had never shared. Jason had frowned evenly all the way through, but never interrupted. When he finished, Tim had shrugged and waited.  
  
“Dick is such a fuck-face.” Tim snorted gracelessly.  
  
“Yeah.” He agreed, nodding after a long drink of soda. “Dick is kind of a fuck-face.” Jason laughed loudly, and Tim joined in.  
  
“Watch out Timmers, old Brucie would be so disappointed if her could hear you now.” Before Tim could stop himself, a response spilled out.  
  
“If Bruce was here right now, he’d have much bigger reasons to be disappointed in me than my language.” Jason studied him for a second, before he stretched his arms behind his head, and resting his shoes on Tim’s side of the booth.  
  
"Yep. And that just makes the whole thing better."  
  
"What makes you say that?” Jason thought before responding.  
  
"Because if you’ve failed Bruce, it means you haven't become him. And that, Timmy, is the greatest achievement in the world.” Tim felt the smile spreading across his face, because it was true. Tim was a tiny bit self-serving, and a rather large bit lippy and confident. Tim wasn’t a hero. Tim was happy. “Besides,” Jason continued, smiling back, “Do you regret any of it?”  
  
Tim thought on it for a second. The Cat’s Cradle, as Selina called it, the home he shared with the woman he had so quickly come to love as a mother. Olivia, the cat that Selina had proclaimed his after she’d started flat-out ignoring Selina. The full night’s of sleep that had started frequenting him more often, without night terrors or chills. The weight of the world off of his shoulders.  
  
“Not at all.”  
  
“Damn straight.” Jason replied. They have a toast then, at the dingy booth, hitting together soundless paper cups, and laughing for hours.  
  
“I don’t need Dick to be happy.” Tim mused aloud while they walked back towards the seedier end of the city.  
  
"Good for you, buddy. Only you can define your sexuality. Don’t let the catsuit chose for you." Jason replied around a cigarette he was attempting to light. Tim punched him sharply.  
  
“Don’t be an ass.”  
  
“Don’t get your hopes up.” They both laughed.  
  
“Thanks for the pizza, Jay.” His older brother looks down at him, an eyebrow raised.  
  
Jason pulled him in for a hug, and clapped him on the back.  
  
“What are brothers for?” He asked rhetorically, before releasing a surprised Tim from his tight grip. “Text me, I know you have my number.” Jason winked, and turned to head the opposite direction.  
  
“Will do.” Tim surprised himself a little by actually intending too.  
  
When he reached the Cradle, Selina seemed to have just padded in herself. After seeing his jacket and jeans, she asked,  
  
“Where were you, Kitten?”  
  
“Well, I got the info.” She smiled her special, slightly rapacious smile that meant she was proud of him. “And then I got pizza with my brother.” Her brow furrowed in concern, her hand resting lightly on his shoulder.  
  
“Dick?”  
  
“Nope.” He grinned. “Jason.” Selina paused, then shrugged, and turned to the kitchen, to prepare tea.  
  
"You can have him over if he promises not to kill either of us and you two don't get food on the couch." Tim laughs. He didn’t see the warm smile that crossed Selina’s face at that sound.  
  
*        *         *        *        *  
  
Later that night, Dick received a voicemail from a payphone.  
  
“Hey there, _big brother_!” Dick groaned internally. Jason. “So, what have you been up too? Except for you know, shooting blanks with your demon-spawn Robin. Because I get to see that on the news.”  
  
“Now I didn’t just call to mock your adventures in the cape and cowl, because as funny as that shit is, I have something real to say to you.” Dick paused.  
  
“You are such a fucking prick. Like actually.” He sighed loudly as Jason’s message gained volume. “You can try to rehabilitate the midget assassin all you want, see if I give a shit, but way to not pay attention to what you were doing to the people around you, asshole. How very _Bruce_ of you.”  
  
“I couldn’t give less of a shit whether or not you are Batman or Nightwing or just plain old Dickiebird, okay? You can have your manor and your cowl, your Robin and your team-ups and morals, I don’t care, but try and open your fucking eyes once in while. Okay? Okay.” The message ended with the unceremonious clatter of the phone being slammed down.  
  
*        *        *        *  
  
Every few weeks, Tim visited the manor.  
  
It felt empty.  
  
It made _him_ feel empty.  
  
Dick would hand-talk and smile, and hug Tim aggressively, but there were lines forming around his eyes, subtle shadows crossing the plains of his face that had never been there before. The cowl was heavy, and it was changing him.  
  
Tim had changed too. He was just a lot better at hiding it.  
  
It had started with jokes. Most often sarcastic, but never failing to bring a smile to Selina’s face. Then, a slight shift in his posture. Tim was carrying himself with more confidence than he ever had before. Stray way changing him.  
  
For the better, he thought.  
  
But, here, at Wayne Manor, we wore his baggy clothes and mousiest expression. He met Dick’s gaze without the new warmth and edge he possessed.  
  
Tim didn’t want Dick to know who he was.  
  
 _Not yet._  
  
Damian was notably absent every single time Tim dropped by the manor, and Tim couldn’t bring himself to ask, or care, why.  
  
Dick sat opposite of him in the Batcave, a place that wasn’t half as comfortable as it once was for Tim. Tim had to force the patterned monotonous that his voice had always contained, revelling at how shy he sounded. This wasn’t the first time he had visited, and there had been no signs of Dick noticing anything different or wrong about him, until he asked, as they sat at the computer,  
  
“Tim,” He started, gently. “You seem a little off lately. Is anything else wrong?” Tim’s frustration flared dangerously.  
  
"Whatever could be wrong, Dick?" His facade of reserved quietness slipped, and Tim became quite aware of how much he had to pretend to be Dick’s hero-worshipping little brother. Nevertheless, an almost bitter tone worked it's way into his voice, and his words became languid and biting. "It's not like I had everything I loved taken away from me, all at once."  
  
“Tim...” Dick started, sadness in his eyes.  
  
“But,” Tim spoke crisply, honestly, “I am okay.”  
  
*        *        *        *  
  
Tim was wearing his thinking face.  
  
Selina knew this was either very good or very bad.  
  
She just curled up on the open end of the sofa and studied him.  
  
“How was your visit to the manor today?” She probed gently, as he worked the sleeve of his sweater soft between his finger and thumb. His sharp blue eyes met her equally keen green ones,  
  
“I’m okay.” He began. His eyes swept across the apartment they comfortably shared, something that had so long been hers and was now so very much theirs. His jacket thrown over his chair, a blanket thrown over hers, on opposite ends of a small table in a small kitchen that they both attempted to cook in. His books or her shelves, the soft blue pullover she had borrowed from him and never really returned being used by one of the cats as a makeshift bed. “I’m really, _really_ okay.” Laughter bubbled out of him, a true smile reaching his eyes, balancing their edges with a soft, earnest happiness. “I like my life. I love my life.”  
  
“I’ve never felt that way before. Robin made me feel important, needed. Bruce made me feel worthwhile. Steph made me feel wanted. But-” Tim was still processing his thought, spilling the words to Selina. “This makes me feel... deliberate, and efficacious, and enigmatic!” His eyes were sparkling, his expressions almost joyful.  
  
“I couldn’t be happier for you Kitten, but,” Tim quirked his head slightly, eyebrows coming together. “You _are_ important, and needed, worthwhile, and wanted.” Tim laughs a little, before responding easily,  
  
“I wish my mum had been a little more like you.” A look of panic flashed across his features, before careful blankness. Awaiting her reply.  
  
Selina was far less surprised than Tim looked.

  
“Me too, Kitten. Me too.” She slid her hand across the sofa and took his in her own. “But you’ve got me now.” Tim squeezed her hand, and leaned his head back against the sofa, eyes sliding closed, smile still wide.  
  
“Yeah. I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooooly Cats, guys. The first chapter got a pretty good response, thank you to everyone you stopped in for a read, and those of you who even decided to leave kudos. Right now, this looks like its going to be about 15 chapters long, but don't quote me on that. Lots of love from the writer.


	3. Less-Than-Sudden Changes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kon is back from the dead, and for some reason, has been having issues getting a hold of Tim.

Kon had been back for a whole week, and he hadn’t seen Tim yet.  
  
The phone number he had from the year before was long-dead. He had gotten the new one from Dick, along with a shrug, and a clipped explanation of, “He’s not Robin anymore.” And, “Maybe he’ll answer you with more than a word at a time.”  
  
He had yelled at Cassie during a visit to the Titans out of frustration on his fifth day back.  
  
“All of you were here! And no one thought to make sure he was okay?!”  
  
Cassie had flinched, and tried weakly,  
  
“He _said_ he was okay...”  
  
“And we both know that he always says he’s okay. Especially when he’s not.”  
  
Nobody had tried to take care of Tim. No one at all.  
  
So now he was flying over Gotham, listening for Tim’s heartbeat. If short, dark, and anal retentive wasn’t going to answer his calls, than he would just have to deal with him face-to-face. His careful attentiveness was interrupted by the long, shrill beep of an alarm signal being activated. A short glance told him the source was a penthouse apartment, not forty-five feet from where he was floating. With a resigned sigh, he moved to check it out.  
  
There was a man in the room.  
  
Kon slipped silently through the skylight that had been left open in the criminals wake. There was only one heartbeat in the room, the man’s, steady and practiced. Kon assumed he was a thief, by the way he circled by the wall safe in the far corner of the room, and then crouched before it.  
  
Apparently, Catwoman had acquired either a look-a-like or a partner in the time Kon spent elsewhere. The man was small, but wiry, his muscled frame very visible beneath the very tight catsuit he wore. His costume was complete with ears and whip, goggles tinted orange and pulled down to conceal his identity. He sighed, as Kon drifted into the shadowed corner of the room, and without turning around stated with a nearly teasing voice,  
  
“I know you’re there.” To say that it surprised Kon was an understatement. His entrance had been soundless.  
  
“And I know you’re here. Let’s skip the games and make our way to the nearest police station. Agreed?” The man tutted softly, turning to face the side of the wide space in which Kon floated. It was visible that he was in his late teens, early twenties now. His face was all angular planes and wicked smile.  
  
“Skip the games?” He pouted and swayed his hips listlessly as he took a few aimless steps, “But what’s the fun in _that?_ ”  
  
“Who are you?” Kon asked bluntly, feeling unnerved as the Cat’s eyes passed over him in the darkness. The man hummed happily.  
  
“Gentleman by day.” He bowed theatrically before spinning, and dropping low again, into a placid crouch, eyes moving around the room with an almost leisurely quality. “Opportunist by night.” The man stood slowly from his crouch, catching the zipper that ran up his chest on one clawed finger and dragging it down a few inches,  
  
“Pervert by choice.” Kon crushed the urge to lick his lips. The man stretched out a hand, his index and middle finger pointing directly to the spot where Kon floated, and his thumb raised. He brought his thumb down slowly, and Kon’s heartbeat stuttered momentarily. “Rebel by cause.”  
  
“And you can call me Stray.” His tone was fervent, and Kon’s mouth was a little bit dry. Stray continued. “Come out and play?” Before Kon could force his stalling mind to produce a response, Stray snickered quietly, before turning his back to Kon once more,  
  
“I’m a poet, and I didn’t even _realize.”_    
  
“That’s not the saying.” Kon managed to say, his voice only sounding a little dumbfounded.  
  
“Oh, _darn._ ” Stray rested a hand on his chin, drumming his fingers as if in deep thought. “Messed it up again, didn’t I? I never did get all my idioms straight. But I do know a few...” Stray was taking slow steps. “Why don’t you come on out so we can keep up this game of Cat-and-Mouse?” Kon remained silent for a moment, trying to grasp at a coherent response in light of Stray’s... well, Stray.  
  
“What’s the matter?” He murmured, “ _Cat_ got your tongue?” Stray winked, and Kon’s brain kept stalling. He usually was pretty good at banter, or so he thought, but there was just a whole lot of flirting and leather in front of him, and he was very, very distracted.  
  
Stray just idly moved around the room, not getting any closer or any farther away, stretching like he was bored. He did a series of slow turns, his body pinwheeling at a crushingly slow pace through the air. He shifted his weight from his left leg, to his right, to his right hand, to his left leg again, that brought an alarming amount of saliva to his mouth.  
  
“Listen, I have somewhere to be-”  
  
“Ditching me already? Must be a hot date, huh?” Stray stared at the spot where Kon still floated.  
  
“Not until we take that trip to the police station.” Kon replied almost immediately, trying to make his voice sound final.  
  
“I thought we established that I wasn’t interested. Besides. I hit the silent alarm a few minutes ago; the police are bringing the party here as we speak.” Stray crossed his arms and popped a hip, while Kon felt his jaw drop. “So come into the light, mysterious stranger. I at least deserve a peek at your face if I get caught here tonight.” There was an unspoken, _which I will not_ , that hung in the air.  
  
Kon obliged him anyways. He heard the police car winding its way around a corner about four blocks away, so he floated deftly to touch the ground, feeling the dull light of the city expose his face.  
  
“C’mon, Stray, it’s time to-” Kon stopped speaking abruptly. Stray looked like someone had clubbed him upside the head a brick, the almost slippery facade dropped with startling suddenness. “Are you okay?” There was a short beat of silence, before Stray choked out a single word.  
  
“Kon?!”  
  
Panic was the first thing that crossed Kon’s mind, but it was terminated very abruptly when Stray threw himself at Kon.  
  
Before Kon had time to react, he found himself being clung to by the cat, who had pressed his goggled face tightly against Kon’s chest, and wrapped his arms impossibly tight around Kon’s shoulders.  
  
“ _Kon._ ” Now his voice had lost the enigmatic, provocative edge. He sounded sad and small and unsure. Kon wrapped his arms around Stray without realizing he was moving.  
  
“Um...” Kon started, feeling Stray’s shaky breathing through his t-shirt. “Not that this isn’t nice... Who exactly, are you? And how do you know my name?” Stray made a small noise against his chest, before leaning back and looking up, into Kon’s eyes. He pushed up his goggles , revealing a pair of cool blue eyes. A smirk spread across his face, slow, and genuinely happy, before he chastised,  
  
“Really, Clone Boy? It’s only been a year.”  
  
This time, it was Kon who felt, and was sure he looked, like he had been clubbed upside the head with a brick.  
  
 _“Tim?!”_ His cheeks reddened and he nodded a little shyly. Kon made an effort to speak, but what came out sounded like a backfiring truck.  
  
“Um, hate to ruin the reunion, but, you should make with the up-up-and-away, or I’m going to get arrested.” It then hit Kon that Tim was stealing from a penthouse, wearing a catsuit. Kon just smiled weakly and replied,  
  
“I can do that?”  
  
*        *        *        *  
  
They were laying side-by-side on the peaked glass roof of the Wayne Enterprise building, the highest rooftop in Gotham.  
  
Kon recognized Tim, he did. Flashing blue eyes, pale skin and a floppy mess of dark hair, but he couldn't help but feel like he was meeting a stranger.  
  
This Tim was a good four inches taller, both leaner and more edged with muscle that he ever was as Robin. The roundness and blush had left his cheeks, replaced by cheekbones that looked sharp enough to cut glass. His eyes held more colour, more life and cut even more easily through Kon than they had before.  
  
The biggest difference in Tim was that he was comfortable. It seemed as though he shed his insecurities with the mantle of Robin, and slipped into a new skin. A skin that just happened to be black, and skin tight, and still unzipped halfway down his chest.  
  
His comfort showed as he stretched out beside Kon, their shoulders touching lightly, allowing Kon’s TTK to move effortlessly between them. Tim hadn’t ever been easy to touch, even if it was a simple high-five, or a reassuring pat on the back. Tim wasn’t guarding himself. At least, not in the way he was used to. Kon cleared his throat before he broached the silence.  
  
“So...” Tim’s head lolled to face him, eyes catching him like a trap. Kon was acutely aware of Tim, spread out close beside him in a way that was beginning to make him ache.  
  
“So?” Tim grinned, the shyness gone. “I guess it’s storytime, huh?”  
  
“Yes.” Kon’s eyes drifted to Tim’s bare neck for a moment. “Please tell me how _this_ happened.”  
  
“Well, you are back from the dead. Something tells me your story is more interesting.”  
  
“Something tells me it’s not.” Kon replied with immediacy a expression he hoped didn't convey the entirety of his mixed emotions. Tim just looked back up at the sky before stating playfully,  
  
“In which case, you get to go first.” Kon spluttered,  
  
“That’s not fair-”  
  
“It’s perfectly logical. If you think my story is going to be more interesting, then we will never get to yours. So, speak.” Now that sounded like Tim. Or the Tim he knew before.  
  
“Well... I died.” Tim flinched, almost imperceptibly, but TTK did wonders.  
  
Kon explained as well as he could, his thousand years of healing, his third-round with Superboy Prime, and the trip back to the past.  
  
“Bart is back too?!” Tim looked ecstatic, smiling broadly at the muggy sky. “This is incredible. I don’t even _believe_ it.” He had a boyish enthusiasm about him. He slanted an eyebrow and gave Kon a sideways glance, “You’re technically legal now... Not that it stopped you before.” Surprise flashed across Kon’s features at the innuendo. That was going to take some getting used to.  
  
“You know what I don’t believe...” Kon led off smoothly, eyeing Tim in his entirety once more.  
  
“Oh, yeah.” Tim chuckled. “This must be a little hard for you to take in.” Kon was trying pretty hard not to use the words ‘skin tight’ or make a pun about whips.  
  
“What prompted the costume change?”  Tim’s eyes darkened visibly and he let out a single bark of laughter.  
  
“I thought you talked to Dick?” Kon shrugged, very much aware of the of the uncertain ground on which the conversation now stood. Tim stretched again, eyes poignantly not meeting Kon’s, and muttered,  
  
“He fired me.” Kon felt his forehead fold into lines of confusion, twisting to look at Tim’s carefully blank face.  
  
“What?! When?”  
  
“Almost six months ago, now.” Tim shrugged, like it didn’t matter.  
  
“Why?!” Kon’s voice was gaining volume.  
  
“There’s a new Robin, now. Dick is Batman, Bruce is dead. My dad is dead.” Kon took each phrase like it was a punch to the stomach, but Tim simply listed them off, as if they might’ve been items on a grocery list, still looking into the distance. It wasn’t all new information to Kon, but it was still startling to hear it put so plainly. “So, I found a new name.”  
  
“Or rather, a new name found me. I went off on my own for a little while after I wasn’t Robin anymore, no cape, no cowl. I barely remember it now, but... It wasn’t a good couple of weeks.” Something in his voice made Kon believe it was all much darker than the straightforward way Tim put it. “Catwoman found me one night, made me go back to her apartment, asked me what was wrong.” Tim smiled an almost tender smile. “I moved in with her. Better than living in one of Bruce’s apartments with his ghost. She gave me some time, and then told me I had to get back out there.” Selina Kyle had taken care of him, and was the only one to try. Anger at their friends, at the heroes they went so far as to call family began to boil in his chest, alongside a soft, grateful feeling towards the cat-thief of Gotham’s streets that Kon had only ever heard stories about. Tim’s eyes lost the slight, wistful edge as he recounted the events that were fast fading into the past. “And so, I’m Stray.”  
  
“Why not invent a new name? Get back into being a hero?” Tim frowned a little, considering the question before replying,  
  
“Would it have been worth it? The cave isn’t the same- it doesn’t welcome me anymore. I wasn’t a bat, not without Bruce, and I wasn’t ready to go out on my own. I felt numb, betrayed, jaded. I was seeing ghosts of Bruce and my Dad and... _you_. Everywhere I turned. I didn’t want to chase Dick and his new anti-Robin across the rooftops anymore than I wanted to end up chasing a delusion across the globe.” Tim’s eyes have gone harder than Kon has ever seen them before, Robin or otherwise. “You didn’t see me Kon. I was cracking, right down to the core. I wasn’t in any place to be making decisions alone, much less behind a mask.” Kon nodded slowly as Tim suppressed a chill.  
  
“And now... you steal things?”  
  
“Well, there’s no point in denying that one, is there.” Tim tried for a laugh, but Kon was honestly a little thrown off by the concept. Tim had always held the highest of moral codes, a standard above even Superman’s, debatably Batman’s in rigidity. “I don’t steal anything without a reason.” Tim held up a hand, which Kon noted was clawed. He stuck out his thumb. “Information. I release it to expose criminals, or sell it to the likes of which will serve justice in their own way.” His index finger came up next. “Codes and Plans. I’m careful to watch where they end up.” A third finger. “Artefacts. Greedy people in a greedy country. There a lot of things neatly wrapped up in the safes of this city that belong in museums, in labs of science and history. The only reason they aren’t is because our honest government doesn’t know they exist. I assist in their discovery.” Tim flicked up another finger and continued, “And trinkets. I’m not a saint.” He dropped a wink and tucked his hand back down.  
  
“Trinkets from where?” Kon asked, honestly curious.  
  
“Jewelry stores with owners who make more money than any person in this city who exchanges a day’s work for a day’s pay. The excessively wealthy. Nothing they would notice was gone until they do the yearly count.” Tim looked a tiny bit raw. He was giving honest answers, and wanted an honest response.  
  
“What do you do besides... that?” Kon couldn’t bring himself to believe Tim had just given up on Gotham like that.  
  
“Batman and Robin are sucking the big one right now, to be honest. There’s a lot of slack falling to the lower parties.” Tim’s eyebrows had furrowed. “Their targets are too big, especially while they are both still training for their roles. Cat, myself, Batwoman, the Red Hood, the Question, we pick up most of the small crime around the city now. Muggings, kidnappings, the like,” Tim smirked, “I don’t typically put an effort into stopping the odd heist we see, though. It’d be a teeny bit hypocritical.” Before Tim could continue, Kon blurted,  
  
“Does Dick know?” The question had been digging at him ever since the goggles came up.  
  
“Nope.” He replied listlessly, with a popping noise. “Thinks I’ve given up the cape for hacking and University.” Kon had assumed as much. Tim chuckled, before adding, “He’s right about one thing.” Kon raised an eyebrow and waited for the rest of the comment.  
  
“I gave up my cape.” Tim grinned, and Kon snorted.  
  
“Clearly.” There was a slight pause. “You may be a cat by costume,” Kon asserted, holding Tim’s eyes with his own, “But you’ll always be Boy Wonder to me.” Tim’s playful grin had become a little bit sad.  
  
“And you will be my Clone Boy. Back from the dead once more.” Tim’s voice held a joke and a note of bitter sadness. Kon couldn’t think of a response to make the fact that he died, and left Tim behind to fend for himself.  
  
“Listen, I-”  
  
“No.” Tim cut him off, eyes on the cloud-obscured moon. “Just. _Just_ , don’t do it again.”  
  
“Okay.” They both knew Kon wouldn’t make the promise he couldn’t keep. Neither of them ever would. It was a stupid promise to make, a lie, in their field of work.  
  
“So...” Tim broached the comfortable silence that hung in the dank Gotham air. “You missed an entire season of Supernatural while you were gone.” Kon half-groaned, half-laughed.  
  
“And you obviously already own it, so we are marathoning as soon as possible.” Tim chuckled along,  
  
“We sure as _hell_ are, Buddy, when are you free?”  
  
“Dude, we work around your schedule, remember?” Kon ribbed. Tim indicated loosely,  
  
“Yeah, well, I make mine up all on my own now, so that won’t be an issue.”  
  
“That’s like, the second coolest thing about all of this.” Kon could hear the raised eyebrow as Tim asked,  
  
“And the coolest thing?”  
  
“Definitely the ears.” Kon snorted, and Tim punched him in the ribs. “Seriously though, man, that costume does not look comfortable.” A lazy smile spread across Tim’s face.  
  
“ _Au contraire_ , Conner. This thing is like a second skin.” Tim moved to set his hands behind his head, his eyes closing as he stretched out fearlessly on the glass rooftop.  
  
Kon swallowed, his mouth a little dry.  
  
Things certainly had changed while he was gone, but not just the things he had left behind. Coming back threw into heavy relief the things that had changed about Kon, as well.


	4. Nothing Stimulates Like Good Conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim has a few long conversations; Selina offers her advice, Barbara proves that the World's Greatest Detective no longer wears ears, Stephanie attacks Tim on campus, and Jason offers nicknames and causes more trouble than he is worth.

It was nearing two AM when Tim finally returned to the apartment, slipping soundlessly in the window.  
  
Selena was waiting up with tea and one of Tim’s books, their tradition as always to wait until the other returned for the evening. It was a reassurance, he thought, that both of them would meet in the well-lit, warm apartment, share a cup of tea and some battle stories, before retiring to their respective rooms.  
  
“Hello, Kitten. You were out late. Run into trouble?”  
  
“Always do.” Tim replied slyly, pulling off his goggles and cap in one swift movement. He very gently withdrew a USB from behind his ear. The information from the penthouse.  
  
“And what did trouble look like tonight?” Selina quirked an eyebrow and grinned. Tim tossed his headgear on the table as he sat down opposite her, a wide grin on his own face to match.  
  
“ _Superboy._ Tall, dark, and back from the dead.” Selina was caught between beaming and looking shocked, producing a facial expression that made Tim laugh so hard tears rolled down his cheeks. She promptly huffed and chucked his own book across the table at him,  
  
“ _Tim!_ When did you find out? What happened?” She asked urgently, smile brightening her eyes.  
  
“Well, I set off the alarm in the penthouse- easy way out, I know, but- Superboy just so happened to be in town.”  
  
“And?” Selina was too keen not to catch the sudden flush on Tim’s cheeks, he knew that, so he mumbled,  
  
“I couldn’t really see him when he first came into the room, so, I sort of.. did the thing.”  
  
“What thing?” Tim pinched the bridge of his nose, waving his other hand uselessly in the air in front of him, and explained,  
  
“Our _thing_.” This time, it was Selina who burst out laughing.  
  
“Oh, Kitten, no.”  
  
“Ohhhh _yes._ ” Tim pouted. Selina continued to laugh, her attempts to regain her composure a little bit feeble and obviously wasted. “I didn’t know it was him!” Tim defended.  
  
“Did he know it was you?”  
  
“Not until after he came out where I could see him, and I realized who _he_ was.”  
  
 _“Tim.”_  Selina had her mouth shielded by a hand, her eyes filled with the pain of second-hand embarrassment. Tim just sat with his arms crossed, his scowl looking more like a pout. “But what happened next?”  
  
“We got out of the penthouse, and just talked.” Selina looked floored, and Tim wasn’t entirely sure why. The big news of the night was out.  
  
“You just _talked?!_ ” She scoffed a little, looking playfully offended, “But, you did _the thing!_ ”  Tim made a show of slamming his head on the kitchen table.  
  
“Don’t remind me.” He didn’t have to see her to know she rolled her eyes.  
  
“Tim, you know I can see right through you, right?”  
  
“Yeeess.” Tim groaned, but she simply persevered.  
  
“And do you want to know what I see right now?” Tim peeked an eye out before groaning again,  
  
“Nooo.”  
  
“Too bad, Kitten.” She smirked, leaning forward on crossed arms. “You missed your best friend because you loved him. But, you were also a tiny bit in love with him.” Tim spluttered, just as good as telling her she was right. “Now, there are honest ways to make a dishonest living, but Tim.” She waits for him to look her in the eye. “You do this honestly.”  
  
“But-”  
  
“Hey! No more bottling up your brood.” Selina slinked off her chair, headed to her room for the night,Tim supposed, but not before she called back, “Besides. If he had you in his hands and let you go, tall, dark, and back-from-the-dead is practically yours already.”  
  
*        *        *        *        *  
  
Tim truly hated the glasses.  
  
He attended the University of Gotham on a daily basis, studying history and working at the on-campus museum. Slightly ironic, he understood, but mindlessly enjoyable. The glasses came at Selina’s suggestion, when he asked why she wore her circular black tinted pair every time she went for groceries or out on day-scouting.  
  
“It’s the illusion, Kitten.” She had smiled, “You can’t just have a secret identity, you have to have suspended disbelief. It _couldn’t_ be you.”  
  
Tim just felt lucky that glasses and cardigans suited him.  
  
It certainly helped him fit in with the history department on campus.  
  
History hadn’t initially been Tim’s first choice, but there were many times he loved it dearly. History was fascinating if you let it be. Facets of personalities that they didn’t talk about in books, relationships so bluntly obvious in the tales from the past, deluded into non-existence by the preference of readers. Things hidden _inside_ hidden things in plain sight.  
  
It also helped that Tim was easily the brightest student in the faculty. It led to his easily obtaining the only paid internship at the museum, which led him to the tour he was giving on the French Revolution at that particular moment.  
  
He wrapped up the tour with a concise conclusion, directing the herd to the nearby souvenirs, and providing the time for the next tour. He let out a long sigh of relief as he turned and walked away from the groups of touchy couples and mouth-breathing nine year olds.  
Then he was tackled.  
  
It certainly felt like a tackle, at least. Tim poised his body to drop as he caught the weight, preparing to throw the offending tackler off sideways. A mouthful of familiar blonde hair stopped him.  
  
 _Stephanie_.  
  
He stopped the throwing motion as best he could when half-executed, which resulted in Tim lifting Steph off of the ground and spinning her in a wobbly half circle.  
  
 _“Hey!”_ Steph near squealed before Tim set her down and held her at arms length. Tim let his smile grow, but kept himself small, contained. This was the first time he had seen her in weeks, and that occasion had been at the manor.  
  
“You scared the crap out of me.” Tim said honestly. Steph smiled widely, eyes sparkling.  
  
“You’re getting rusty, Tim.” She flicked him on the bridge of the glasses. Tim rolled his eyes.  
  
“I sense that you have a wildly impractical solution for me.”  
  
“Of course I do.” Steph responded with her blinding smile. “And you are going to say yes, because I need you to.”  
  
“Well, if I’m going to say yes, you need to tell me what the plan is.” Steph’s expression is filled with guilt. He braces himself.  
  
“Well, it’s an undercover thing, at a nightclub this Saturday. I need back-up I can trust.” Tim understands the guilt. He has always hated nightclubs. Something tells him they wouldn’t bother him as much as they used too. Tim made a show of looking pained.  
  
“Fine. But you owe me.” Steph hugged him with her ever-sustained enthusiasm, before turning on heel to leave.  
  
“I do! You are the best, Tim, I’ll text you.” He waited until she was out of sight to pinch the bridge of his nose. Club-beats gave him headaches, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he couldn’t have fun.  
  
*        *        *        *        *  
  
Tim felt busy. Which wasn’t something that happened very often anymore.  
  
It had been three nights since his conversation with Steph, two of which spent working, and now he sat at an unusually pleasant corner cafe in the east upper end of Gotham, facing Barbara Gordon across the bistro table.  
  
Summer was breaking over Gotham, now. Gone were the heavy rains and light snows of the cities hard winter, as spring tumbled into action, clumsy and new.  
  
Easy conversation passed between the two. Babs and Tim were similar in both temperament and interests. Tim replied in earnest, keeping up with Barbara’s wit without the steeled edge, careful around the observant woman with things like his posture and volume. He had his legs crossed, arms resting on the table, meeting her eyes steadily, but without force.  
  
He had been initially skeptical when she asked him to go out with her. They kept up regularly over phone and text, and ran into each other on Oracle's mainframe and at the manor often enough to stay familiar.  
  
“So, you do anything interesting lately?” Barbara asked, sun flashing off her glasses. Tim smiled politely and replied,  
  
“Well, there’s a new exhibit at the museum, and I’ve been appointed to assist in the curation and authentication of the artifacts.”  
  
“That’s amazing, Tim. I’m proud of you.” A genuine flush coloured his cheeks. “But what about night-time activities? Find a mask you want to wear yet?”  
  
“Actually-” Tim started to explain in solid logic why he had given up the hero gig, begin to lie, when Babs cut him off,  
  
"Or maybe you picked up a sharper set of claws?”  
  
There was a prolonged beat of silence.  
  
They both burst into laughter so loud it drew the attention of those sitting nearby, Tim having imagined the look that must’ve just graced his features, and Barbara having had seen it.  
  
Tim relaxed in front of the woman who had so long been like a sister to him. His shoulders straightened as he leaned back into his seat, legs uncrossing as he near sprawled in the cafe chair. One hand moved to palm his hair, the other to tap restlessly on the glass table.  
  
“How long have you known?” Then it was Barbara who wore the surprised expression, her mind still processing Tim’s sudden change in demeanour and presence, both sharply tangible.  
  
“With certainty? A few weeks. Suspicions? Months.” She quirked a smile, which he returned.  
  
“A round of applause for the world’s _true_ greatest detective.” He raised his mug across the table, half-empty and in a gesture he sincerely hoped she would return.  
  
“Better recognize.” She winked, and clicked her mug against his own. Tim still had his coffee at his lips when Barbara playfully asked,  
  
“How’s that costume working for you, Tim?” He lowered his drink and pulled the back of his hand across his mouth.  
  
“Oh, _it’s working_.”  
  
“I could see that.” Oracle’s eyes didn’t miss a thing. That was a fact that Tim would never again discount.  
  
“It’s a little tight though.” He half thinks-aloud, half-complains. Barbara just lets out a short laugh,  
  
“I could see _that_ , too.” They both laughed. There was a pause as Tim’s mouth worked out words before his mind did, and he spilled a question,  
  
“Don’t tell Dick?” She gave him a sharp look, and he couldn’t help but be reminded of Selina. Both women discerning and brilliant.  
  
“Not a chance, Tim.” She paused, and Tim was grateful, but waited for the unspoken second half that hung in the air, “That’s _your_ job.”  
  
****  
  
There wasn’t a lot going on in Gotham.  
  
It was a Tuesday, and Tim didn’t have a heist or anything planned. Just the desire to prowl the rooftops at a leisurely pace. He decided to hit the rooftops, see if something shiny caught his eye, and place himself in the way of any crime he saw fit to stop.  
  
Gunshots.  
  
Of course. Tim had fully recognized the moment he had crossed into the neighbour claimed by the Red Hood.  
  
More gunshots.  
  
Jason was efficient, if anything.  
  
Tim followed the sound, to an abandoned hotel. The grandeur of the place was now a sad footprint, become fainter as time washed it out of existence completely. Time rinsed everything away in waves.  
  
The shots had stopped by the time Tim crept into the upper floor of the main lobby, swinging in fluidly through the remnants of a shattered window. He ended up crouched on and upper tier of flooring, that opened up on two sides to grand staircases, pooling into a wide entrance hall.  
  
Only one of the staircases looked functional, and the banisters along either side of the second floor were knocked out, giving Tim a clear view through orange lenses at the action below.  
  
Jason was standing with arms raised in a circle of men with automatic weapons, hood removed, teeth filmed with pink and bared in a wolfish smile, eyes whited out behind a domino mask.  
  
“Gentlemen...” Jason started, and the words were bait. It was always bait with Jason. “Can’t we settle this in a civil manner?”  
  
“Um...” A small voice came from one of the armed men. “You came here to kill us...” Jason shrugged.  
  
“Thank you, Sherlock. But, that doesn’t mean I have to kill you. Well, not all of you. I mean, I already took out four of your guys, and three of you are wounded, but it can stop there.” Tim scraped his foot along the floor, taping it audibly twice. A Batman code, one they had both used. _Long, short short. Back-up._ Something very subtle and very much like relief spread across Jason’s thin-lipped smile. Jason’s hand slowly curled inward, so that only two fingers remained pointed. _Stand ready_. “Most of you are afraid.” Jason spun languidly, and the motion was greeted with a chorus of safety’s and shouts. He was now facing the corner in which Tim crouched. Dressed in all black, Tim knew the only visible part of his form were those orange lenses. “And I’m not alone.”  
  
Silence pounded in the room, heavy as the collective adrenaline of the gang rose in unison. Flashlights pointed around wildly, but none even passed over Tim.  
  
“I thought I ‘taw a puddy tat...” Jason’s terrible looney toons impression was certain to haunt Tim’s nightmares.  
  
“Stop, now, or I _will_ shoot you!” The voice of the alleged leader was shaking, but loud in the barren hotel.  
  
“I did! I did see one!” Jason’s fingers curled in, and that was the signal. _Now_.  
  
Tim lept to the main floor, using the shoulders of the largest man there as a landing pad. His whip was drawn, and Tim never ceased to move as he ruthlessly began cutting down the gunmen. Jason had sprung into action as well, pulling a handgun out of Tim-didn’t-freaking-know-where.  
  
“What the hell, Kid, you actually use that thing?” TIm had learned. A bow-staff was his weapon of choice, but he was aiming for a little bit of anonymity, at least for now. A bow-staff was distinctive, and there was no way the connection wouldn’t be made between the new Cat and the old Robin.  
  
“What did you think it was there for, _decoration_?” Tim deadpanned, focused on the men and guns, most primarily, separating the two.  
  
“I was gonna’ guess _fun_ , but.” Tim was remarkably non-plussed by the sound of bullets flying around him. He was careful, as always.  
  
"This coming from the man who used to dress like a sex toy." Tim bit back, as he lashed a man across the back of the neck, opening a wound. Jason just let out a bark of laughter before replying in kind,  
  
"That coming from the man who looks like he could use one."  
  
“Now why would I take those to work.” Tim deadpanned as the last man fell with a dull thud and a bulletwound.  
  
“Holy hell, Kiddo, don’t let Dick hear that one. Brother-bat’d pass right out.” Tim nearly giggled at the mental image of Dick's face his mind provided.  
  
" _Christ,_ he would. We'd have to shock him back into functioning." He and Jason laughed for a moment longer.  
  
"Pizza? Least I can do after you saved my ass." Jason shrugged in his general direction. Tim shrugged back. Boredom was his reason for rooftops tonight.  
  
"Sure. Let's patrol on our way back over, because I obviously need to change, and while I know you don't particularly care, you should too."  
  
"Sounds like a plan, kitty-cat." Jason smirked, teeth still stained with his own blood. Tim grimaced at the nick-name.  
  
"Is that really necessary?"  
  
 _"Absolutely."_


	5. Maura and Aunt Pam

Tim impatiently shoved his hair off of his forehead as he pulled the door to his bedroom closed behind him. He had planned to throw himself on his bed and yell into one of his pillows until the exasperation of an entire workday wasted on explaining the Mesozoic era to three separate group of fourth graders went away.   
  
Unfortunately, he was stopped mid-flail by the sight of a box and his cat, Olivia, on the bed.   
  
He settled for sitting with a grumble, and reaching across to grab the box. Olivia head-butted his arm for attention. He scratched her ears idly as he plucked a note of off the white cardboard box.   
  
_I got you something for your little shin-dig with the blonde bat. Wear it or suffer. Be careful tonight, Kitten, but more importantly, have fun. ~Cat_  
  
There was a very real moment where Tim was afraid of the contents of the box.   
  
Upon pull the lid off, it was revealed that its contents were the product of one of Selina’s reasonable decisions. To Tim’s relief, there was a simple white t-shirt and pair of black jeans on the inside. He knew that they were both probably absurdly expensive, and at first glance looked a little bit on the tight side but, mother knows best.   
  
The gesture brought a smile to Tim’s face nonetheless.   
  
Tonight was his undercover with Steph.  
  
Selina knew that he had a more than uneasy feeling about the operation, something about the displacement he felt towards bats in general becoming sour and tangible as the date neared.   
  
This was her comfort, and truly the best she could have given.   
  
_If you can’t be Tim quite yet, be Stray._   
  
Tim grinned to himself.   
  
He might not be able to handle it. But he _knew_ that Stray could.   
  
*        *        *        *        *  
  
Steph’s smile was brilliant, as it always was when she wanted something, as they approached the door, ignoring the line.   
  
The bouncer quirked an eyebrow, looking Steph up-and-down in her dress. Tim just rolled his eyes, and stated loudly,   
  
“Tim Drake- _Wayne_. Before you ask me who I think I am.” Steph giggled, and the bouncer simply stepped aside and let them in.   
  
The music was so loud that the bass reverberated around corners, a swill of human bodies moved almost indifferently, but in a careful sort of cooperation, huddled by the need for closeness and the lubrication of alcohol on the large, empty space that was considered the floor.   
  
Tim almost grimaced before he remembered that he had a strategy for this. So he rolled his shoulders once, letting a hand brush Stephanie’s waist, before he settled on a lazy smile.  
  
Every time Tim had sacrificed efficiency for entertainment, he had been greeted with a scowl and a lecture. The bonus, he thought, of not being a bat, was not having to listen to what batman had to say at the end of every night.  
  
The thought was bitter sweet.  
  
Tim wondered, not for the first time in the last six months, what Dick would think if he knew.  
  
He entertained the idea for a moment before banishing it from his mind. A quick consideration brought him to the still sweet realization that he really _didn't care_.  
  
Dick had his reasons for his actions.  
  
Tim had reasons for his.  
  
Reasons that exceeded any nostalgic desire for approval.  
  
So Tim let the pulse of the music fill his ears, and followed Stephanie into the shadowed club.  
  
"Up there." She nodded with her chin, up to the open second floor, a balcony that hung over the bar. "Keep eyes on him, we'll tail him when he leaves." In the back of his mind, Tim considered how much easier it would be to just walk up there and pickpocket the dealer, but, it wasn't his undercover operation, and it wasn't the right time for Steph to find out about his fun new costume.  
  
“And otherwise?” Tim spoke into her ear, trying to avoid shouting over the music. Steph smiled, genuine this time.   
  
“You dance with me, _Pretty Boy_.”   
  
“ _Pretty Boy_?” Tim mumbled back as she led him towards the edge of the crowd.   
  
“Your jeans are too tight to call you anything else tonight.” _Selina._  
  
“And your dress?” He bit back, assessing not for the first time the black slip that looked a little bit more like shirt material to him.   
  
“I will respond to _sexy_.” Steph grinned madly. The crowd was more or less just a slew of uncomfortable bodies, but as Tim was led by hand through the flashing lights and body heat, he found himself minding less than he thought. A pretty substantial part of his brain still hated nightclubs, but suddenly, he could see the _potential_ of it all.   
  
No one was any closer or further than anyone else, and although personal space seemed completely irrelevant, it was a comfortable sort of non-distance.   
  
He swayed in time with the musics and bodies around him, barely conscious of whether it passed for dancing or not. Steph ran her hands up through her own hair, both of them keeping the target in peripheral vision at all times.   
  
“Wow, Tim.” She spoke loud, mouth just near enough his ear for him to hear her over the music. “You usually play the part of I-was-forced-here-please-let-me-go-home.” She cracked a smile. “Not so much tonight.”  
  
“I’ve been forcing myself to try new things.” His voice came out low, dangerously nearing the tone he reserved for security guards and wealthy women who woke too easily in the dead of night. “Problem, _Sexy?_ ”   
  
“Not at all, _Pretty Boy_. Quite the opposite.” She laughed almost exaggeratedly, turning to face him, her arms falling from above her head to across his shoulders. “I mean, this is definitely more fun than the stiff board you’ve been practicing for years.”   
  
“Happy to oblige.” He muttered, a trained eye on the target.   
  
“You wanna head over to the bar, keep him in your sights, I’ll mill about, see if I can’t find out some extra information?”   
  
“Sounds like a plan.”  
  
Tim worked his way through the hoard as Steph spun the other direction and pressed inward. He took a seat at the bar, thankful for the lack of people in his personal space for the briefest of moments. He checked his watch, and raised his hand to order a drink, just as one was placed deftly in front of him. He gave the bartender a raised eyebrow, and the man pointed down to the other end of the long, curved glass bar, to small, timid looking girl with short brown hair. She averted her gaze as soon as Tim glanced in her direction, flushing bright pink to the tip of her nose.   
  
Tim grinned sheepishly and floundered for a moment, losing sight of his target and glancing at Steph. She was laughing openly at him.   
  
_The switch flipped._   
  
The somewhat mousy girl had enough personal space for him to slide into, and the angle to VIP, where their target sat, would be much more natural to glance at. His smile shifted in intent and appearance. The bartender watched in stunned silence as Tim went from nervous blundering to slipping off of his stool and sliding in beside the girl at the opposite end of the bar.   
  
“Thank you.” He said in a low voice, ducking his eyes to meet hers. She was a very small human being, with a button nose stained bright red, her brown eyes meeting his with a highly nervous energy.   
  
“You’re welcome.” Even her voice was small. He stretched his hand out across the not-so-wide space between them.   
  
“I’m Tim.” She shook his hand. He noted her unpainted nails, her fingers a different sort of delicate in contrast to his own long, almost spindly ones.   
  
“Maura.”  
  
“Well, Maura.” He smiled around the lip of his drink, earning a shy smile in return. “What brings you here tonight?” The target hadn’t moved all night. Not to order a drink, he had those brought to him, not to greet his friends, they greeted him, he was even smoking indoors. Gross.   
  
“I hate nightclubs.” She giggled into the back of her hand. “My friends dragged me out of my apartment. I’d been moping.”    
  
“So your friends brought you to a nightclub. Which you hate.”   
  
“Which I hate. I’d rather be at home with a book, but, that constitutes as moping. Apparently.” Tim had her smiling now, warm and genuine. He didn’t have to look at Steph to know that she was both watching and shocked. Tim Drake had always been the awkward bat, excluding deep cover situations where he got to be someone else. They didn’t know that the awkward bat was now the someone else he so often pretended to be in their presence, and regardless of history, Steph was a bat.   
  
“A reader then?” Tim asked, curious for her response, but still keeping that almost rolling tone in his voice. If anything, Maura seemed intelligent, and good for a conversation to start. She nodded eagerly,   
  
“I’m at lit major at Gotham U.” Tim was very suddenly relieved that he had used his real name.   
  
“I’m studying Anthropology, I work at the Museum on campus.”   
  
“ _Really?_ ” Her mouth popped into a neat little o-shape and Tim only had to think of the shirt he was wearing to understand her surprise. _Selina._  
  
“Sure am. Now,” He put the remainder of his drink on the bar, before leaning even further into her space and speaking directly into her ear, “Let’s see if we can’t change your opinion on night clubs?” When he pulled away, she was blushing violently, but smiling all the same.   
  
There was a sudden noise, both dull and shrill and all too familiar. Tim had lived in Gotham all his life, and knew what a gunshot sounded like.   
  
And this one was close.   
  
Tim spun to put his body between Maura and the sound, at the same time she slumped out of her seat with a shudder.   
  
Too late.   
  
The people at the bar were the first to notice, the shot not being quite loud enough to disrupt the music that rattled the building. Screams began to echo, and the beat stopped.   
  
Maura had a wound on the left side of her chest, that was bleeding profusely. Tim met her expression of horror with controlled calm, his training over-riding the wave of adrenaline that made him near tremble. Steph was already in sight,   
  
“Drop the target, I’m going after the shooter. He ran out west. Try and keep her alive until paramedics show up.” Tim nodded sharply as he lowered Maura to the ground, placing firm pressure on her wound despite the visible distress it caused her.   
  
“Hey, hey come on Maura, eyes on mine.” She was crying, blinking madly, but her eyes did find his. “There we go.” The bartender was calling 911, shouting into the phone.   
  
“Here we go Maura. In a few minutes there will be paramedics here, and they will patch you right up, okay?” She nodded weakly, tears spilling down her cheeks. “You’ll spend a few weeks in the hospital, and I’ll visit you every day, yeah? And when you get out, I’ll take you for lunch on campus, we can talk about all the books you read while you were resting, Maura, we’ll do all of that, just stay focused on me.”   
  
“That sounds nice.” She choked a little. Tim wasn’t stupid; Unless something next to a miracle occurred, Maura was going to bleed out on the concrete floor. “It doesn’t hurt.” She told him, almost factually around a short cough.   
  
“That’s a good thing.” Tim lied easily. “You’ll be fine.” Blood stained his sleeves and chest, standing out in stark contrast with what was formerly white.   
  
Maura’s eyes slipped closed.   
  
“Come on, _Maura_!” He shouted over the din of heavy breathing that filled the club.   
  
Her eyes fluttered open before the slipped close once more, and Tim felt as her heart stopped beating under his hands.   
  
Tim rocked back, just as the paramedics burst through the crowd. He just shook his head.  
  
  
*        *        *        *        *  
  
Tim didn’t know when he started using Stray as a safety blanket, but something about him felt more whole when he left in costume.   
  
Life was starting to feel fickle to him. Sometimes staying, other times leaving, sometimes returning to those thought to be long gone.   
  
Life should make up its mind.   
  
Tim, for one, had never blamed death. Death was natural, death was gradual, and then sudden, and then over. Death didn’t give, and it took exactly the same thing from everyone. Every single living thing was the same in the eyes of death. Death treated all as equal. Not as much could be said about life.   
  
Tim found himself, full costume and no intentions, wandering into Gotham’s Botanical Gardens. The sprawling conservatory was made almost entirely of glass panels, and a great deal of them lifted up easily. Once inside, the thick warm surrounded him, like a welcome.   
  
He climbed to the crown on a sturdy looking tree with flaky bark, sprawling with keen balance along a high, thin branch, back and head leaned against the sturdier trunk. He thudded his head against the trunk, over and over, as he thought.   
  
_What was he doing?_  
  
No matter where he turned, no matter who he became, no matter where he ran and no matter where he got left behind, Tim always found himself with something to lose. Say what you want about life and it’s meaning, things had always been simpler, easier, when Tim had refused to dance along the line.   
  
“There’s a cat in my tree.” A sultry voice called from above him. Tim’s eye snapped open, focusing through orange lenses on a scantily clad woman with skin that was lime in colour and vividly red hair. Poison Ivy.   
  
“So there is.” Tim replied, his voice dry.   
  
“Pouty Cat, up in my tree, all alone with his thoughts.” She lithely dropped through the branches, barely making a sound at all. He watched as the leaves bent towards her, like a cat seeking attention. Spending any given amount of time around Poison Ivy made you acutely aware of one thing; there was a lot of life that human beings ignored. It wasn’t the intelligent life, but the kind that grew and felt and needed all the same. She took a seat, cross-legged on a branch a tiny bit lower than his, resting her head against the trunk before asking, “Care to share?”  
  
“Life.” Ivy snorts.   
  
“Well, no wonder you’ve wilted. Life is cruel. Fleeting.” She raises an eyebrow. “And that has to have been something you’ve learnt by now.” Tim gave a sort of weak half-smirk.   
  
“You and I both.”   
  
“That’s right, kitty cat. Now get over it. You can never save everyone, you can never save everything. And the sooner you come to terms with that little tidbit of information, the better you’re going to be at this whole not-a-hero, grey-zone, bullshit.” Tim was listening thoughtfully, up until he was snorting.   
  
“Bullshit?” Ivy nodded sagely.   
  
“ _Bullshit_. Listen to your Aunt Pam.” She gave him a warm smile, a gesture that was much more welcoming without the glimmer of pollen softening the edges. “Life’s harder, for we the few who choose the grey zone. You’ve gotta accept that now. Sometimes, it’s even harder than being a hero. As always, there is the easy thing, and the right thing, but now,” She paused, “You don’t have any obligation, moral or otherwise, to do either.”  
  
“It sure as hell doesn’t make things either.” Tim replied, her words making an incredible amount of sense.   
  
“Think about it.” She insisted. “When you are a hero, you have that voice, that angel on your shoulder, and you always know what you should do. You don’t always do it, but you always have that direction. But, the grey-zone gives you back one thing that being a hero has always cost.”  
  
“What’s that?”   
  
“Freedom.” Ivy was right. Freedom came at a cost, but it was one that Tim had long ago reconciled with paying. This was a rough patch, not the end of the world. “And the allies aren’t too shabby either. Any Stray of Selina’s is good enough for me.” This time, when she smiled, Tim found himself returning the expression. “The whispers on the street are getting louder, kiddo. There’s a new cat in town.” For some reason, the usual uneasy feeling that came with any mention of Stray’s growing presence was accompanied by a smirk.  
  
“Well, it goes to show that we don’t live in the sharpest city if it’s taken them this long.” He replied. Ivy laughed, a simple, almost dorky little laugh, so unlike the kind he usually heard from the woman.   
  
“Batman might just coat the city in guano when he figures you out, kiddo. But if you want my two cents? This skin suits you better, Pretty Bird.” Tim took a single moment to be surprised before he asked,   
  
“How’d you know?” Ivy stretched out on her tree branch before she shrugged,   
  
“There’s not many people in Gotham who’d understand the conversation we just had the way we both did. And there’s only ever been one Bat or Robin who has treated me with any kind of respect, regardless of whether they thought I deserved it at the time.” Her voice got quiet at the end.   
  
“What Batman and Robin think of you isn’t the end all be all, take it from someone who knows.” Tim supplied in a soft voice. He watched a grin pull at the corner of her mouth before he told her,   
  
“I should probably head home. Selina waits up.”   
  
“Of course she does, you’d worry too if your kitten was out prowling the streets all alone.” Ivy teased with an odd, matter-of-fact tone. “I’ll walk you out. I have some tricky pollen producers that you don’t want to run into.” She dropped a wink, and they both dropped from the tree. They walked in companionable silence until Tim saw an odd sort of flower growing at the base of a tree. Both blue and red at the same time, with petals that came to a dull point.   
  
“What are those?”  
  
“Special something I whipped up the other night. They blossomed beautifully, did they not?” Ivy grinned as she crouched in front of the cluster, thumbing the petals gently. Tim replied with honesty, leaning against the tree trunk, very careful not to step on any of the plants at his feet.   
  
“They look dangerous.” There was something just south of normal, just a tick off the time. Tim, forever trained in his eye for the unusual. Pam just grinned up at him,  
  
“Ah, but all the best things are. Look at you, Pouty Cat. Look at me.” She dropped a heavy wink, and Tim laughed. She dug her hand into the ground, scooping out a single flower, its roots curling neatly into a small ball. “Here.” She stood before extending her hand toward him, the flower turning in her palm to face him.   
  
“Will it kill me?” He gave her a raised eyebrow before he even considered touching the thing. She shrugged.   
  
“Only if you offend it.” A grin crossed Tim’s face, and he took the flower from her with gentle hands.   
  
“Fair enough.” He scrunched his features, inspecting the plant up close. “I don’t have a pot.” Ivy scoffed,   
  
“Then steal one. That’s kind of your thing, isn’t it?” She bumped her hip against his own playfully, and Tim laughed loudly. They reached an open window in what seemed like very little time at all.   
  
“Thanks, Ivy.” Tim saluted before he leapt down, landing almost soundlessly on the ground a short distance before rising.   
  
“Hey! That’s Aunt Pam to you.” She shouted after him with a wink. “If you ever need to angst about life again, or just need some good old fashioned gardening advice, you know where to find me.”   
  
“Thanks.” Tim repeated, adding for good measure with a smile, “ _Aunt Pam_.”  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THAT TOOK FOREVER TO UPDATE. This chapter is long, if that's any consolation. And the next one is almost done. I've just gone back to class, and that sucks, but hopefully I can at least make updates more regular. Comments are my lifeblood, and you can visit me on tumblr anytime.


	6. Timothy Drake and the Philosopher's Stone (I've Got The Magic In Me)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim steals a couple of things. Kon falls victim, but definitely doesn't mind.

Gotham’s sky was black, adulterated by smoke and the pinkish stain of streetlights that barely held their bearing against the starless night.   
  
Tim had been planning for weeks, relentlessly, for this night. A trail had led to another trail, which had let to him discovering that being an anthropologist and a cat-thief was quite the combination.   
  
The Philosopher’s Stone was _real._   
  
And naturally, Tim was going to steal it.  
  
It was a idea so prominent in alchemical text that Tim couldn’t bring himself to ignore the concept. With things like the Lazarus Pit tucked away in nooks by the wealthy and malicious, Tim counted most things as valid until he proved otherwise.  
  
The Stone was real, but not magical.   
  
Maybe it once was, but now it stood as a single Red Diamond, more than one hundred carats in size.   
  
And Tim had found it tucked in the pocket of one of Gotham’s own upstanding citizens.   
  
The Stone was worth hundreds of millions of dollars in physical value, but it’s historical value was innumerable. Unfortunately, this citizen didn’t see the Stone the same way the historical community would have. The owner hadn’t reported to any faculty or professional that the Stone even existed, or, at least, not on the books. Surely, someone in power would have called the owner out, and then there would have been the issues of who really owned the precious gem, and where it should be kept.   
  
That was at least what Tim liked to think.  
  
Right now, it sat in a very shiny, high-security safety deposit box in the very shiny vault of a private facility on the Upper West side. Tim had every intention of misappropriating the Stone to a place where its true value could be appreciated and assessed; Namely, The University of Gotham Museum.   
  
The thing about keeping your valuables in a private repository was that you didn’t have to give any personal information or even proof of identity when you purchased a box. You didn’t have to tell anyone what you were storing, or why. This particular client had purchased several of the no-questions asked boxes, but only one contained the Stone.   
  
The repository was fronted by a massive glass lobby that blended into a low concrete structure.  
  
He had coded a bypass from his laptop over tea with Selina that morning- At precisely 12:14, the lights in the lobby were going to go out. Tim watched through dark glass with a wolfish smile as the two front-guards fumbled for the flashlights, before complaining loudly as they headed for the breaker room.   
  
Tim slipped in through a panel of glass he had replaced a few days prior, posing as a maintenance worker.    
  
The secretary had been incredibly easy to charm. So easy to charm in fact, that Tim had made a gentle excuse to leave, rather than attempt to turn down the inevitable offer to ‘ _go out some time_ ’ that he could already see in her eyes.   
  
_Hell hath no fury like a sexually frustrated secretary._   
  
The pane lifted smoothly, and Tim slipped in without a sound.   
  
The lobby was simple to cross, even with the added pressure of keeping to the slight and few blind spots between the innumerable cameras. Chances were, nobody was watching them at the moment; he had a small device meant to scramble the entirety of his form to little more than a dark blur tucked into his belt in any case.   
  
He reached the other side of the lobby without any trouble at all.   
  
Now, this was the semi-stupid part of the plan, but sometimes, simplicity trumped all strategy. Athena herself couldn’t have done better, because there simply wasn’t a better option. Tim didn’t really want to have to knock the lobby guards unconscious, so he hoped this was going to work out in his favor. He ran across the lobby, keeping to the shadows, to the door the guards had left through. By the time he reached it, he could hear them approaching.   
  
He flattened himself against the wall beside the door, freezing in place as the door flung open.   
  
The guards walked by in brash ignorance, conversing loudly about last Saturday’s bar-hopping adventures.   
  
Tim slipped through the open door like oil through water, holding his breath until it snapped closed behind him.   
  
_Okay_.   
  
It was a long walk down a short hallway, through a few doors with key codes, carefully inputted.   
  
The box he needed to get open was a small square, made of steel reinforced concrete, keyless and codeless in entry. An Iris scanner instead would turn the lock.   
  
The thing about iris scanners was that while sounding intensely secure, they were actually hilariously flawed. Tim had simply reverse engineered the small string of code that the proper iris would give the small computer, and viola, the box slid open with a loud click.   
  
He was glad that it worked. Eighty percent success rate wasn’t always reassuring.  
  
Tim plucked a small, bound package from the box. It was heavy and hard, and a small peek told him that it was definitely a gem of some kind, red as blood, clear as glass.   
  
He stood, smirking but successfully resisting the urge to hum a happy tune.  
  
In theory, getting out was always easier than getting in, but the theory, of course, was flawed. There would always be times like this, where he would be making his smooth getaway, and then, it would stop be smooth. He had made it all the way to the first hallway, revelling in the ease, when a voice shouted from a considerable distance behind him,   
  
“ _Damnit_ , it’s Catwoman!”  
  
 _Fantastic._  
  
“Close, but no cigar.” Tim quipped back in a dry voice, turning to face a pair of men who were jogging towards him. The older man had a face serious as stone, eyes narrowed and nostrils flared. The second man was considerably younger, and looked a little bit stunned, and a tiny bit pleased. Tim gave a tired sigh.  
  
“How did you get that?!” The older guard yelled gesturing at the wrapped package in his left hand. Tim watched as he made a sweeping motion against his hip, like he was looking for a gun. That meant formal military or police training. The younger guard just stared, jaw a little slack.   
  
“Let’s just say it fell into my pocket?” Tim grinned facetiously. “ _You see, only one who wanted to find the stone- find it, but not use it, would be able to get it._ ” He kept his eyes trained in the younger guard, who seemed more interested in the zipper down his chest than anything else happened in the room. His attention, however, stayed with the older guard and the probably-not-mandated taser he had produced. Tim dropped the Stone into his utility belt, fastening the pocket closed.   
  
“Was that a Harry Potter reference?” The younger guard asked, grinning the whole time.   
  
Tim took a short step forward, pleased and priming a response, only to feel two prongs stick in his suit, and have a strong electrical current dissipate with a thin crackle.   
  
“That tickled.” Tim said with a raised eyebrow, now turning to face the older guard. He carefully plucked the prongs out a dropped them to the floor in a rather cold, calculated manner. “Does that make it my turn?”  
  
Tim kicked high, bringing the heel of his boot down on the temple of the first guard, the taser falling from his hand with a hollow bounce while he collapsed unconscious.   
  
“See, now I’m actually going to feel remorse for this.” He sighed out a little before he spun, elbowing the second guard out before the frown could properly settle on his features. The radio attached to his chest beeped quietly before a voice asked,   
  
“One of the tasers just registered as fired, what’s your status?” Tim crouched, plucking the small, corded speaker up with a clawed hand. The guard moaned, blinked furiously. Tim used his free hand to get a firm grip on his hair and bounce his head with just the right amount of force of the cool floor.   
  
“Status report: Playful. And a little bit thirsty.” There was a long moment, before the voice replied,   
  
“Um, what?”  
  
“Two down, four to go.” He stated, smirking as he heard the voice come rapid and much higher in frequency.   
  
Another guard rounded the corner with a baton in little more than a dozen seconds. Tim had to applaud them on their reaction time. He was too close to the lobby now for any of those automatic locking mechanisms to keep him in, if they even succeeded in the first place. And it wasn’t like Tim hadn’t fought a police officer before. The main thing was being extremely cautious not to attract the attention of a certain pointy-eared vigilante.   
  
Tim just walked right up to the guard, striking his wrist with one hand and the baton with his other, sending the weapon flying. A nerve strike, and the third guard had fallen to the floor. Tim knelt down and retrieved his key ring. If he was going to alert everyone in the building, he might as well leave through the front door. An alarm began to beep incessantly, and this had officially become problematic. He knew, in theory, the overrides if the building shut down, but they were painstaking and time-consuming..   
  
Tim opted to beat the lockdown instead.   
  
He ducked out into the lobby, greeted by the sight of two guards, tasers primed and raised.   
  
They fired simultaneously.   
  
Tim dropped into a crouch, and four prongs crossed, tangled, and fell uselessly in front of him.   
  
“Wow.” He drawled, before springing at the men. He elbowed one in the head and just sort of pushed him into the other, hearing them fall to the ground with a painful crack. He winced as he dashed towards the door, hearing another alarm sound, ringing in his ears.   
  
The last guard in the building ran through the door which Tim himself had come, looking terrified. Tim unlocked the door with his borrowed keys and leaned against the glass, a wave of relief passing through him as it opened, albeit cueing another alarm into the chorus.  
  
Tim was fresh out of effective plans to distract or disable the guard, so he just threw the keys at him as hard as he could. They hit the man in the throat, and Tim winced before he turned, and sprinted away.   
  
He was several rooftops away when he first turned to look back at the Repository.  
  
Tim watched as a scarce amount of lights flashed on in response to the chaos of this particular night. Sirens and screams were all too common to incite a panic in Gotham. He saw three police cars, and ambulance and a fire truck pulled up to that gleaming glass lobby. Inside, they would find six incapacitated but generally unharmed guards, and one cracked safe that everyone with any relevance now had been told was empty in the first place.  
  
He grinned as he took a few leisurely steps backward onto the low rooftop, grinning to himself. Now it was time to go home, safely store the Stone, and bask in a hot shower and his own glory before sleeping off tonight’s little excursion. That of course, was the plan, until he backed directly into something tall and warm and breathing.  
  
Tim spun around, priding himself in not jumping or yelping. Batman’s training stuck, and that was pretty much the end of that. He felt his heart hammering in his throat as he sank into a low crouch, one hand going to his whip.  
  
Kon had his hands raised, a gesture of surrender.  
  
“ _Woah_ buddy. Just as much of a spaz as ever, I see.” Tim narrowed his eyes before he stood.  
  
“Some things never change, Superboy. If anything, I’m _extra_ careful now.” A sly smirk worked its way across his face before he could stop it. The costume didn’t stop with the catsuit, and Tim used his almost abrasive identity as Stray to protect him. When he was Stray, he wasn’t unsure, or nervous, or weak. He was confident and fluid, with the absolute freedom of being a wildcard, rather than having a wildcard to play. He belonged, with Selina and in this skin. He felt almost untouchable. So long as Tim was in suit, he was in character.  
  
Kon returned the gesture with an almost hesitant grin of his own. Tim cocked his head before asking, voice remarkably even,  
  
“Although, you seem a little neurotic yourself tonight, SB. What’s on your mind?” Tim could’ve sworn Kon’s eyes flashed down, with a hint of red, before he cleared his throat and ducked his head.  
  
“What did you just steal?” The question was quiet.  
  
“Oh.” Tim replied, rather than verbally assessing whatever sort of moral crisis he was currently presenting to Kon. “Nothing that wasn’t too difficult to get my hands on.”  
  
He watched as Kon blinked a few times. He felt like punching himself in the face for a brief moment before he waved his hand through the air.  
  
“Okay, wrong answer, _sorry_ , trying again. I was stealing this.” Tim pulled the Stone, wrapped securely, out of his utility belt. A short pull on the twine and the red of diamond glittered in the slight shine of a single floodlight on the roof. Kon’s eyes widened. “The Philosopher’s Stone. Maybe not magical, but definitely the big shiny rock they talk about in all those books. Going to drop it off at the University of Gotham Museum tomorrow without a return address and watch my Prof. lose her sanity when she pulls open the paper.” Tim smiled as he secured the soft wrapping around it once more, before tucking it safely away.  
  
“And if you’re wrong?” Kon asked skeptically. Tim scoffed.  
  
“I’m not. And even if I was, as previously stated, I’m not.” Kon’s smile reached his eyes this time, and Tim let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding.  
  
“Well, if you’re sure-”  
  
“I _am._ ” Tim insisted.  
  
“But I have to ask.” Kon was smirking now. “What if you had backed into like, a wall or something?” Tim just rolled his eyes.  
  
“Most walls aren’t particularly warm. Or muscled. Or breathing.” He wrinkled his nose, placing a hand on his hip.  
  
“Something tells me, wall or not, you still would have gone for your-” Kon stopped mid-sentence, and found a sudden interest in the starless sky.  
  
“My _what_ , Superboy?” Tim taunted with an eyebrow raised, thoroughly amused. Kon cleared his throat before replying,  
  
“Well, your whip.” Tim smiled a little wolfishly, giving a drawn out,  
  
“Ohhhhh. _My whip_.”  
  
“Do you even know how to use that thing?” Kon asked. Tim gave him one very dry, calculating stare, just to let him know that he had asked the wrong question, before he more or less pounced.  
  
Kon took a somewhat rocky step backwards, giving Tim the perfect opportunity to knock him down. He had his whip out in a fraction of a second less than he had a leg on either side of Kon’s waist, and had it wrapped around his neck in the next. They landed with a dull sort of thud and the expulsion of air, and Tim tightened his grip,  
  
“I can use it well enough.” Tim was able to narrow his eyes and give a lopsided smirk before he froze. His friendly attack had left Kon sitting, stunned on the rooftop, with Tim planted on his lap. One of Kon’s legs were folded underneath him, whereas Tim had his feet planted on the ground, a knee on either side on Kon’s ribcage. He had tightened his hold on the whip in his hand, bringing Kon’s face down, and close, close enough that Tim could feel breathing on his clavicle that wasn’t his own.  
  
“I can see that.” Kon’s eyes were bright, and wide, a roaming.  
  
And just like that, before something like common sense could stop him, Tim pulled Kon in that extra inch or two, kissing him in a manner both blunt and a little bit needy.  
  
Tim felt with a very acute, hollow ache as Kon did absolutely nothing. Froze, maybe, Tim’s eyes had slipped closed at some point. He pulled back, letting the hand that had come up against Kon’s chest drop, and loosening the grip on his whip. Kon’s eyes were large and focused sharply on him.  
  
Tim dropped his gaze, letting the whip slither away, letting it fall with a near silent finality to the hard rooftop, his grip on the handle nearly white-knuckled.  
  
“I-” He started, unable to phrase why that was a joke, or a mistake, unable to pass it off as anything other than exactly what it had been. “I’m sorry.” Tim whispered instead.  
  
He tried to stand, which unfortunately required a very miserable, almost scooting motions. The moment he moved, Kon let out a sort of half-sigh, half-groan that made Tim snap back into focus, his eyes hard against Kon’s own.  
  
There was a brief moment of just that, before they were in the air.  
  
“Holy sh-” Tim threw an arm out, grabbing onto Kon’s shoulder before he felt TTK spreading it’s grip over him, as they gained distance from any and all rooftops. Rooftops, meaning, escape routes. “Kon! A little warning next time?” Tim glared at him, complete mortification temporarily forgotten.  
  
“What was that?” Kon asked him rather than giving him any response. Tim tried to withdraw his hand in an effort to cross his arms, but Kon caught his wrist. Tim stared mournfully at the roof, now dozens of feet below them.  
  
“Kon, you were _there_.” His face was forced blank, and no matter how far Tim leaned back, he couldn’t get more than a foot away from Kon’s searching eyes.  
  
“Yeah, I was.”  
  
“So what do you want me to say?” Tim was getting exasperated. His only options besides answering Conner’s questions was remaining completely silent or trying to hurl himself onto the pavement below. He quietly noted that while being infuriating, Kon seemed genuine and intrigued, not disgusting or horrified. He asked another question.  
  
“Why did you do that?”  
  
“I was kidding? _God_ , Kon, why do you think?!”  His voice rose in volume, frustration and embarrassment making him feel thin and weak. “You _died_. I didn’t get a chance to tell you about any of this, much less try to-”  
  
This time it was Kon kissing him with force, and he had no delay in reaction.  
  
The insecurity that had felt like his ribs were tightening vanished, and he lost himself in the movement of their lips. Kon’s were chapped, hard, but warm against his own. Tim caught himself beginning to think- what did this make them, where did this leave him and his best friend- so he busied himself by catching Kon’s bottom lip between his own and adding teeth. He smiled against the low noise that Kon produced.   
  
And then frowned when Selina’s voice came over the com in his ear,   
  
“ _What’s going on? You set off every alarm in the district._ ” He chose to ignore her, opting instead to slide one clawed hand underneath Conner’s t-shirt.   
  
“ _Are you okay?_ ” She sounded a little shaky, causing a pang of guilt in Tim. The pause was shorter this time, before Selina deadpanned,   
  
_“If you don’t respond in the next fifteen seconds, I’m coming to get you._ ” Tim pulled back mournfully, bringing his ring finger and thumb together, turning on his own com and hissing,   
  
“Yes, Mom, I am fine.”  Kon blinked a certain heaviness out of his eyes before mouthing, _Mom?_ Tim just tapped his ear and rolled his eyes, as if that should explain everything.   
  
Kon definitely looked more confused.   
  
Tim gave a tired sigh.   
  
“I will have you know that you just killed the mood. No, you destroyed it. You destroyed the mood.” He told Selina in a matter of fact voice, before digging the small speaker out of his ear and dropping it into one of his pockets.   
  
_“What?”_ Kon asked, his voice sounding a little more used than usual.   
  
“She’s a helicopter parent.” Tim shrugged, leaning forward onto his crossed arms. “ _Sooo._ ” Kon replied immediately,  
  
“So.” The wind in Gotham was picking up, but they remained unmoved. Tim spent the silent moment by resting his chin on his forearms, unblinking until Kon asked cheekily, “Come here often?”  
  
“I will hit you.” Tim raised an incredulous eyebrow, but ducked his head to hide a smile. “What’s on your mind?”  
  
“At some point, you got ridiculously good at this.”  
  
“ _This?”_ Tim responded coyly, his smirk growing.   
  
“This. And it’s not like I mind, because, I _really_ do not mind, but,” Kon swallows a little bit loudly. “Can I take a few minutes to let this settle?” Tim was impressed with his own composure when a part of him wilted, and no, not that part, as he replied,  
  
“Of course.” Then he lets out a shaky laugh, as his eyes flick away from Kon’s, and is suddenly less impressed as he rushes out, “I mean, you sort of know where I’m at, but if you don’t feel the same, or don’t want-”  
  
“Shut up. I obviously feel the same. I just don’t want to mess this up.” Kon shrugged like it was nothing, and Tim was pretty sure his eyes must’ve been dancing or some other cheesy verb to describe the way someone;s eyes looked when they heard exactly what they wanted to. “Want a lift home?” Tim smiled, warm and small and happy.   
  
“Sure. I live-”  
  
“I know.” Tim definitely hadn’t yet shared his address.   
  
“You are _such_ a creeper.” Kon grinned back, his eyes full of light.   
  
"We both know you’re the creeper in this relationship.” Tim pushed forward, planting a firm but short kiss on Kon’s lips, before adding,  
  
“Better recognize.”  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS TOOK A REALLY LONG TIME I'M SO SORRY


	7. Fatgirl and the Anti-Robin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Batgirl and Robin come across a new cat-thief in Gotham. Dick has a small panic attack, but such is his life these days. One constant, small panic attack. Cassandra ignores an order, and gives a few herself. Bonus Jason. Extra-Bonus JasCas. EDIT: The dialogue was made to be more clear after someone stated they had a bit of trouble following who-said-what.

Tim was starting to appreciate when things happened unplanned.  
  
Which was _probably_ his first mistake.  
  
His second was letting the odd mix of nervous energy and giddy happiness distract him as he tumbled across the rooftops of Gotham without a purpose. He wasn’t in a taking mood, not tonight, so instead he patrolled, letting the familiarity resonate, letting the breeze dictate his direction.  
  
He spotted a small gang of teenagers, in and around his own age, peddling cocaine to prep school kids beside in a slight alleyway. He dropped from above, scaring away the jumpy buyers in an instant. Four dealers, or, one and three friends. Tim didn’t really care about the dynamics.  
  
They looked a little bit taken aback.  
  
“Before one of you finds it in your pathetic, small minds to tell a joke I’ve heard a dozen times before,” Tim paused, his eyes falling on the only dealer who pulled a weapon. A box-cutter. “No.” He promptly disarmed the boy, sending the knife flying into the shadows nearby with a twist that made his wrist crack loudly.  
  
“Excuse me.” Steph’s- _Batgirl’s_ \- clear voice spoke behind him, and for the scantest of seconds, he was frozen. “What are you doing?”  
  
“Wow. They don’t call you bats detectives for nothing. I was punching a drug dealer in the face, and now I’m fighting the nausea induced by the inevitable pleasantries.” He let the words roll off his tongue, smooth as velvet, before he even turned. The last dealer scuttled off, muttering and squeaking, and Tim took a moment to pity him before turning his full attention to the less than dynamic-duo before him.  
  
He was without his bow-staff, his gauntlets replaced by clawed gloves, his goggles pulled down, heavier than a domino mask. It was getting quite close to nine months since his separation from the title of Robin, and now he was going to find out whether or not his new disguise cut it.  
  
Damian had adopted quite the hero stance, tiny fists balanced on his tiny hips, boots planted firmly shoulders width apart and scowling. Steph on the other hand did nothing to disguise the fact that she was studying Tim’s entirety without a single hint of deduction involved, eyes raking up and down him in an almost leisurely manner.  
  
Tim killed the urge to clear his throat awkwardly as his ex-girlfriend _checked him out_ , and allowed his voice to drawl,  
  
“Well if it isn’t the American Dream and the Anti-Robin, here to protect the citizens of Gotham from it’s seedy underside.”  
  
“What do you think you are up to, _deviant_.” Damian barked.  
  
“We did this already. _Pleasantries_ , Baby-Bird.” He flashed a crooked smile at Steph before leaned against the wall. He could use Steph’s wandering eyes to his advantage, just as he did any other pair that found him a little more than interesting.  
  
Which was such a _Selina_ way to think about it.  
  
She would be proud.  
  
“Not that I find myself minding so much anymore.” She flushed, just as he desired, before she asked him,  
  
“Who are you?” He pointed at Damian with one clawed finger, stating,  
  
“You can call me Stray,” He shifted to indicate Stephanie, ducking his head, “And you can call me whatever you’d like.” Damian gave a loud, indignant splutter, and her blush deepened further.  
  
“I demand you stop aiding this foolishness, _Fatgirl_.” Tim’s eyes widened at the ignorant remark, lips thinning from a smirk to a scowl, as Stephanie gave a long-suffering sigh, meaning that this wasn’t _unusual._ She began to speak, but Tim cut her off by snapping, eyes narrowed almost viciously at Damian.  
  
“Don’t you _dare_ insult her like that again, you insufferable little _twat.”_ Damian blinked visibly in surprise, and Stephanie looked equally as taken aback, but quite a bit more pleasantly surprised. “She’s twice the hero you are, and three times the human being. Now if you wouldn’t mind busying yourself, the adults are talking.”  
  
Damian floundered, seemingly incapable of further remarks, and settled on a sneer. Tim just rolled his eyes.  
  
“Don’t make that face, you look like a pug.” Tim then focused entirely of Stephanie, trying to reign in the frustration and bitterness that was now manifesting. Tim may not have been incredibly in-touch with his own emotions, but he knew when he was letting something affect him.  
  
The second he had caught sight of Robin, he had been absolutely compromised. Stephanie kick-started the conversation once more, as Damian fumed, with the beginning of a rehearsed speech he vaguely remembered reciting to her in the first days of _Spoiler._  
  
“I know this city needs all the help it can get, but that doesn’t mean anyone can throw on a costume and become a hero-”  
  
“Oh, I’m not a hero.” He cut the sentence of before anymore could slip out. “I’m a thief. Don’t you recognize the get-up?” He tweaked one of the pointed ears on his cap and winked. Steph paused before continuing,  
  
“It takes training-”  
  
“And I’ve had more than you and the angry bird combined. No need to worry about little old me, although, the concern is noted.” He twined his hands behind his back and took a few steps into her space, leaning in close enough that his lips lined up with her nose. _"Appreciated."_ Tim was pleased when she didn’t pull away, or punch him in the throat. “Sleep well knowing that your little birdie couldn’t even come _close_ to the things I can do.” His voice gained a note that was deeply lascivious.  
  
“Is that an offer?” Steph responded without skipping a beat. He heard Damian cough loudly in the distance. Tim really should have anticipated Steph reciprocating, but, the comment made his mouth go dry with something like guilt, the need to laugh at his own antics very strong in his mind. He settled instead on biting his own lip.  
  
“My, my, Pretty-Bat, if I didn’t know any different, I’d say you were propositioning me.”  
  
“And if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were avoiding the question.”  
  
“Oh, me? _Never.”_ He was so close that he could feel his own breath ghosting back towards him, glancing off her skin, the air outside just cold enough to make it visible. “It was a promise."  
  
"Can I trust a cat thief to keep a promise?"  
  
"Probably not. You could always make me..." Stephanie flushed, and there was a small part of Tim's brain that was punching the air in victory, because for once, in the entirety of their friendship and then more and then less, she was the one with the demure blush, and he was the one with the leering smirk. It was a good place to stop. "They say brevity is the soul of wit, and regardless of this conversations all too pleasing turn, it has outlived its novelty. In any case, I have plans for the remainder of this evening-" He was of course, referring to getting home as quick as possible to avoid the backfire from whatever the hell Dick was going to call this little meeting. Tim took a brief minute to be mortified by the fact that Dick could either hear this, or was going to hear all about it, before Damian cut across his thoughts with sharp volume,  
  
“Batgirl, he is talking about crime-!”  
  
“And just a few seconds ago, we were talking about _sex.”_ Damian went completely silent, and Tim’s smile was all teeth. “I think next time we have this conversation, Pretty-Bat, you should ditch on your responsibilities as babysitter, so we can take the discussion a little further.”  
  
“I might have to take you up on that.” She quipped back, cheeks still stained pleasantly pink. Tim turned, walking away with a sharp sigh of relief, only to be shouted after by Damian,  
  
“You shouldn’t call her that!” Tim turned, eyes narrow, fully ready lash out at the younger boy once more. But Damian was blushing a little himself, and Steph looked a little surprised. “Pretty-Bat.” Tim grinned. The littlest bat had an unrequited crush. That was equal parts surprising and adorable.  
  
“You’re right.” Tim responded plainly, looking at Steph once more, seeing one of his oldest friends, someone he had once thought lost permanently, before honestly stating, “But Beautiful-Bat doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.”  
  
  
*        *        *        *        *  
  
Dick thought-  
  
He didn’t know what to think.  
  
 _Catlad?_  
  
 _Really?_  
  
 _“What’s_ the report?” He asked bluntly, when Steph and Damian had returned with urgency and news of a man in a catsuit. They both spoke at the same time.  
  
“There is another promiscuous burglar with a theme-costume-”  
  
“I think I _might_ be in love.” Steph contemplated, and Damian's eye-roll was visible through his domino mask, which was saying something about its intensity.  
  
“Brown, could you please take this seriously.” Steph didn't so much as glance down at the current Robin when she replied,  
  
“I think I am serious.”  
  
Cass walked into the cave as Barbara's face sprung up on the computer screen. She didn’t pause in her typing when she asked,  
  
“You called?”  
  
“Yeah." Dick replied, clearing his throat, "Any chance you can pull up any nearby camera activity from Batgirl and Robin’s locations at 1:51 AM?”  
  
“I can certainly look.” Babs' said, code for, _if the footage exists, I can show it to you._  
  
“Any observations about Stray that should be noted?" Dick ignored the pause in Babs’ fingers moving fluidly across the keys. Cassandra did not, quirking her head slightly to the side. Steph answered,  
  
“He has to be related to Catwoman. They even _look_ alike.” Dick sighed, as she continued, “I couldn’t make out the colour of his eyes under those goggles, but they looked sort of green? He said he has training, and alluded to it being a lot of training."  
  
"He also told us he was a thief-" Damian interjected. Steph just crossed her arms and cut the boy off in turn.  
  
"But he was stopping a drug deal when we came across him." Dick raised a hand to silence the bickering pair, before stating,  
  
"Selina doesn’t have kids. And he hasn’t been verified at all yet. Catwoman has been known to intercede on the underdogs behalf, but drug deals are a little out of pace for her." Dick remembered a story about a girl named Holly, and how the first time Selina and Bruce had ever met, they had kicked the crap out of each other in the middle of the street.  
  
"He is a nuisance. I demand that he is captured and punished." Damian’s voice was clipped, getting more prickly by the second. Steph’s eyes were far away when she mused with a shrug,  
  
"Something tells me he'd be into that." Babs snorted loudly, drawing the attention in the room to her image on the screen. She floundered for a brief second before replacing the feed of her with footage from a gas station camera.  
  
There was Stray.  
  
He scared off some buyers, dealt with some dealers, and then made small-talk. Quick to invade Stephanie’s personal space, working an angle the entire time, but well enough to keep her flustered and intrigued for the duration of their conversation. Damian had a pout that worsened by the second, watching the two go at it.  
  
And they were totally _going at it_ , even on crappy camera footage with no audio, Dick could just _tell._ So could Babs, apparently, judging by the fact that she was choking back laughter for the entirety of the display.  
  
“Cut the clip.” Dick spoke as he realized it wasn’t as useful as it was mildly entertaining. Steph’s nose was pink, Damian was scowling, Barbara had an almost concerning shit-eating grin, and Cass stood silent as she almost always was, head cocked. “No one approach Stray unless absolutely necessary.”  
  
Steph and Damian both began to whine with equal tenacity. Dick silenced them with yet another raised hand.  
  
“I’ll have a conversation with Catwoman, and we move from there.”  
  
“Are you sure? I could have a conversation with him tonight and I’m sure a lot of things would get moving.” Steph seemed to be a little surprised that she said the second part out loud, and Cass took a small step away from the other girl. Dick took a moment to blink away deja vu because he had seen that look on Bruce’s face too many times to count after anything Catwoman related and he hadn’t known what it meant when he was nine, but now-  
  
“Brown, you disgust me.” And the ten year-old he was responsible for knew what that meant too. _Delightful._ Babs laughed loudly at his obvious exasperation as Dick pinched the bridge of his nose.  
  
“I’ll talk to Selina as soon as possible, we move from there. No one engages Stray until then, and that is an order.”  
  
*        *        *        *        *  
  
Cassandra usually took orders.  
  
 _Sometimes._  
  
Stray was interesting. It didn’t quite translate on the somewhat grainy film, but something about him was so distinct and familiar it gave her a sort of _aftertaste._  
  
She was interested.  
  
Now, she could find anyone in Gotham if they so much as made a sound.  
  
Stray wasn’t making any noise at all, but the sort of greasy man in a sweatshirt he was breaking against a wall was grunting a screaming in equal measure. A woman was sobbing near silently, sprawled on the ground of the alley, shirt torn and pants ripped open. It didn’t take more than that for Cass to know the nature of what had happened.  
  
Rather than intervene, she found a shadow and sank into it, eyes watchful. Stray seemed to have it under control.  
  
The criminal wasn’t as much of an opponent as he was a snivelling wreck of human waste, but there was procedure to Stray’s movements even still. _Training._  
  
 _Familiar training._  
  
The way he favoured his left arm but was clearly right hand dominant, the way his jaw went crooked, so obviously clenched, and a very specific muscle straining against the skin is his neck-  
  
It was _Tim._  
  
It took a few blinks to reconcile the images, but they slid together with ease and finality. _Tim_ was _Stray._ The criminal slid down against the alley wall, finished with a nerve strike that had rendered him unconscious. Tim knelt by the woman, who was clearly in shock, one hand on her back as she rose from the ground where she had been thrown, his other hand clasped by both of hers with what looked like painful pressure.  
  
When she was standing on her own, scraped palms and tear-streaked face, Tim asked in a soothing voice,  
  
“Are you okay to go on your own, or do you want me to wait with you until the police get here?” The woman wiped her face and nodded sharply.  
  
“I’ll get a few blocks away and call the police.” She hiccuped against a short sob. “Thank you.”  
  
“No problem.” He shrugged, and it was definitely Tim. That tiny little self-deprecating note gave him away like no ones business.  
  
Cass waited until the woman was back on the main road to come out of the shadow. Tim turned to face her, unsurprised at her appearance. She had always been extremely quiet, but he had always been extremely aware.  
  
“You obviously know who I am.” His voice was stiff and dry.  
  
“Yes.” She replied with equal formality. “Obviously.” Tim leaned against the brick wall, pulling his goggles up before crossing his arms over his chest, eyes pinning her with that even, familiar blue. He didn't say a word, just studied her intently, waiting. “What happens now?” She asked, genuinely curious. This was Tim. That changed the nature of everything that was happening, because this was _Tim._ He thought before replying,  
  
"Well that depends on you." She blinked, confused. "I assume you have questions?"  
  
"Why? How?”  
  
"I didn’t have a place with the bats anymore, Batman has a new Robin. Catwoman extended an olive branch." He was gesturing with one hand, feigning nonchalance, but his voice remained serious. "I asked to work with her, she said yes. It’s the best thing that has happened to me, in a very, very long time.”  
  
"When?” She asked, and watched a small, almost proud smile take shape on his face as he responded,  
  
“Months now. Closer to a year than anything.” She grinned back at him.  
  
“Sneaky.”  
  
“Always have been.” He replied with a wink.  
  
“Who knows?” She raised an eyebrow as he raised and hand and counted them off on his fingers,  
  
“Barbara, Conner, Selina, obviously.” So that’s why Barbara has been laughing. “And Jason.” Cassandra cocked her head, surprised.  
  
“Jason?” Tim just nodded, still meeting her eyes. Tim’s question hung in the air, unasked. She responded plainly, "I won’t tell.” A beat of silence passed. “And I’m sorry."  
  
“Don’t be. Things are different now, but... I’m happy.” Tim said with a shrug and a small smile. His eyes were bright and blue and hinted at something almost like mirth, but the lines that had been slowly forming on his face from frowns and clenched jaws were all but nonexistent now. Everything about him was genuine when you peeled away the exterior of Stray, the facade that was the Cat-Thief. Tim had always been smarter than Bruce, even if no one was going to to say it out loud. It was true. Tim was smarter than anyone she had ever met before in her life. Maybe that was why he had gotten out, away from the Bat’s and their drama. In any case, this was _Tim,_ small smile and catsuit, looking a lot more complete than she had ever seen him before.  
  
“I know.” And she did.  
  
*        *        *        *        *  
Jason was working his way through a pint of neapolitan dynamite Ben and Jerry’s when he didn’t hear a knock at the door.  
  
He knew there was someone in the room as soon as there was any presence to be felt, and the fact that she had come through the window sort of negated the principle of knocking.  
  
He looked up with a spoon in his mouth. Black Bat stood in the middle of his living room, in a loose stance that screamed ready.  
  
Jason acted like it sometimes, but he wasn’t an idiot. There was nothing in the world that would make him attack Cassandra Cain of his own volition. He preferred his facial structure and windpipe intact, thank you very much. So, he asked plainly around the spoon,  
  
“Um, can I help you with something?” She cocked her head, and Jason felt something like nervousness as it began to riot in his stomach. He was just a split second away from actual fear, a line he didn’t often cross these days. Cassandra seemed to sense his nervousness, (of course she did, he mentally chastised, she does the thing with the bodies and you are so obviously shitting yourself) and pulled off her mask with one hand. Sharp eyes met his own, appraising him openly as he leaned against the kitchen counter,  
  
“Tim.” She said _clearly._  
  
 _Ohhhh._ She knew about Tim. And apparently, knew about him knowing about Tim. Jason crushed the laugh in his throat, but couldn’t stop himself from grinning around the spoon and asking playfully,  
  
“So, the _cat’s out of the bag_ , huh?”  
  
Cassandra didn’t smile.  
  
“I have been saving that for like, three weeks, and you are playing tough crowd?” He sighed, exasperated, gesturing wildly with his spoon in one hand and ice cream in the other. “What is it with you bats and the occasional well-placed pun.” Cassandra surprised him with a response.  
  
“Robin's job, not Bats.” Jason’s voice held a single note of bitterness as he deadpanned,  
  
“Yeah, well, I’m just making up for the lost years.” Jason watched with careful intensity as her face changed, just a little. The something that fluttered over her features was not the sympathy he expected, but instead, curiosity. Very much directed at him. He continued to eat his ice cream and willed himself not to say something dumb.  
  
“What happened to Tim.” It was less of a question and more of accusation. Jason felt his protective streak flare dangerously.  
  
“Leave the kid and his newfound leather-fetish alone.” Cassandra’s left eyebrow had risen with the volume of his voice. “You saw him. Which means you know he’s happy.” Jason finished this sentence with a pointed stare and a mouthful of ice cream.  
  
She gave a pause, crossing her arms and letting her eyes wander around the cluttered safehouse. Jason was very much aware that his weapons, laundry, and copy of Cloud Atlas were all in plain sight.  
  
“Do you know why?” Jason shrugged, taking another bite of ice cream and a minute to think.  
  
“We all have choices in our lives, including the ones that get made for us. The Kid got fired- worse things could’ve happened. Were happening, by the sounds of it.” Her eyes widened very slightly, so he continued speaking, against his instincts screaming at him to not, but he was always a talker. “So, here is what needs to happen. You all need to leave Tim alone, because he's happy and smart and can make his own goddamn choices. You Bats are the reason he had no place to go." His voice remained static, blank in tone except for the thin note of anger he couldn’t quite manage to keep out.  
  
There was a long pause. Jason clicked the spoon against his teeth. Cass stared at him with intensity that made his stomach riot for a whole different reason, although, anxiety was still very present.  
  
He blinked, and she took the opportunity to close a great deal of the space between them. Jason pulled the spoon out and flailed his arms a little uselessly as she grabbed him by the collar of his t-shirt and pull him down to her height. There was a single moment of her eyes meeting his with fascination, and his eyes meeting hers with severe confusion, before she pressed her lips against his own.  
  
Jason’s eyes flew open while hers fluttered closed.  
  
She was gone before he could properly register what had happened, but not before her tongue had darted across his bottom lip.  
  
He wondered if she tasted ice cream.  
  
He stood up to full height as soon as she released him, but she didn’t leave his personal space.  
  
“Keep Tim safe.” She ordered, eyes soft and still looking intrigued. “And you are a bat.”  
  
She left his apartment with a whole lot of speed and no warning. Jason just leaned back against his counter, taking another bite of ice cream before _sighing,_  
  
 _“Okay._ So that just happened.”  



	8. Hips

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conner talks to Tim, Selina talks to Dick, and Tim talks to Barbara. Tim has the fascinating ability to take a humiliating situation and make it infinitely worse. (Tim used headbutt on the marble surface- It was super effective)

Conner Kent had endured many long weeks, being the teenage superhero-clone of a bald megalomaniac and an alien boy scout. But this was the week that he discovered tylenol did not stave off the headaches of half-kryptonians.

Kon had always been a doer, not a thinker. Hence the headache.

He had told Tim he needed a minute to think, and it had been way too many minutes. Like, exactly ten days worth of minutes.

He was still thinking.

Tim could become Stray without the suit just as easily as he once could become Robin without a mask. He possessed the uncanny ability to pull entire people out of his head and step into them, wear them around like something all too organic to be a shield, then stow them away for later use.

Kon liked to think he knew Tim.

Tim, whose eyes looked almost green through the amber lenses of his goggles.

Tim, who only ever raised both eyebrows if you really, really, surprised him.

Tim, who made names like _Kon-El_ and _Clone Boy_ feel less like insults and more like titles. Tim was the reason that Kon thought of himself as Kon-El, rather than the once thin facade of Conner Kent. Tim was the reason he had long ago accepted that being a clone did not mean he wasn’t his own person.

So he found himself standing outside the door of the apartment Tim shared with Selina, rehearsing a speech that he had memorized and, for the most part, fabricated during a rather uneventful biology class. He spent _too_ long gathering the courage to knock on the door.

_What if Tim had changed his mind?_

_What if Tim had changed too much?_

_What if Tim meant more to him than he meant to Tim?_

On some level, he knew that his doubts were dumb, but they were still gnawing at him viciously when the door flew open of it’s own accord.

Catwoman stood before him, wearing sunglasses and civvies, one eyebrow raised into view. Kon didn’t have a chance to flounder before she asked, smirk in both her voice and features,

“Delivery?”

“Umm.” He responded, once again, dumbly. “Not exactly? I’m here for Tim.”

“Of course you are.” She crossed her arms and popped a hip, and Tim had definitely stolen that particular behavior from her. “Certainly took your time though. He is cleaning compulsively.” Kon chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand, averting his gaze.

“I just... wanted to be sure.” She hummed lightly before asking,

“And you are? Sure?”

“Absolutely.” He nodded, his tone firm.

“Excellent. Because he’s certainly been through enough.” It came off as a warning, and before Kon could stop himself, he joked,

“You know, I always imagined it would be Batman terrifying me with that statement.” She smiled a little wickedly, before replying,

“Well, we can’t all be Batman.” She patted him on the chest, almost sympathetically, before giving him a cutting glare over the top of her sunglasses, “ _Some of us are worse_.” Kon gave a sort of strangled murmur of agreement, and she patted him once more before grinning widely. “You can let yourself in, _Conner Kent_.” She handed him back his wallet, which, at some point, had left his pocket, and she took off down the hall, leaving the door wide open behind her.

Kon put his wallet back in his pocket, squashing the feeling of terror in his chest. He made note to prioritize the things in Gotham that he should be afraid of- number one, being gelded by Catwoman.

As he stepped inside, he became aware of the music echoing through the fairly large apartment. A cat came up to him as he closed the door silently, a calico with huge eyes. He walked to the space where the hallway opened up, before kneeling down to scratch the cat absentmindedly.

Tim was cleaning, just as Selina had told Kon in the hall, but that wasn’t all Tim was doing. He had the music turned up loud, doing the dishes, which left his back facing Kon, singing along to the music.

This might’ve been mildly embarrassing for Tim, but the song just so happened to be _S &M by Rihanna_. This should’ve made it a lot embarrassing for Tim, but it was Kon who felt himself blushing.

Kon had never heard Tim sing before. It’s not like he had ever had any feasible reason to. Then again, Tim did some weird shit for the sake of authenticity undercover, but, still, no singing. That Kon had seen. He was no promiscuous pop-star, but he was hitting the notes without any trouble, and Kon was quite a bit distracted by the sway of his hips. Tim’s jeans were a shade or three tighter than Kon remembered them ever being before. Probably Selina’s hand at work.

He couldn’t bring himself to mind.

Kon watched as Tim scrubbed at a cookie sheet, still blissfully unaware of Kon’s presence, singing, Kon crossed his arms over his chest, leaning against the wall. He hadn’t ever thought of Rihanna as poetic before, but, first times and painful revelations were part of life. He was doing an odd mix of singing, dancing, and dishes, creating a movement that was all, well, hips. Kon watched in silence, due to the fact that any volume would not only give away his presence, but probably come in the form of stuttered and illegible vowels. Tim screwed up one of the higher notes, and began to laugh at himself, bright and happy and real.

This was so different from the Tim that was more prone to giving himself an ulcer than anything else in his free time. All the personalities in the world couldn’t save his Boy Wonder in the dark hours of the night, when Tim was left alone with the person he most often made his own worst enemy; himself.

Tim turned, oblivious by account of his still dancing and singing, dishwater up to his elbows and sponge in one hand. There were a few glorious seconds where Tim didn’t see Kon at all, and then one ultimate moment where he did.

Kon watched as Tim’s brain turned into alphabet soup, and his voice did not so much end decidedly as it trailed off, reminding Kon of the sound produced by _Wile E Coyote_ when he ran off a cliff.

He watched as the colour pooled in his face, until Tim was blushing so hard that the sparse freckles across his nose were thrown completely into relief, his eyes wide with something a little bit gentler than genuine terror, unblinking. Kon, for some reason, found himself more inclined to simply stare back than resort to the wide arsenal of jokes, up to and including just bursting into laughter. He was unaware that the song had ended until the silence that had fallen over the apartment was rudely interrupted by the sudden warbling voice of Enya. Kon hadn’t thought it was possible for Tim to blush harder, but there it was. He got a glimpse of it before Tim apparently regained some control of his limbs and managed to scramble over to the docking station, gracelessly clubbing his Ipod onto the floor.

Now Kon was laughing. Or at least, he was laughing, until Tim decided to chase his Ipod to the kitchen floor and none-too-kindly introduce his forehead to the kitchen counter with a resonating smack, completely by accident.

Tim made quick work of popping back up into view from the ground, holding his Ipod in one hand and his forehead in the other. Kon vaguely wondered where the sponge had gone.

“Conner!” Tim squeaked belatedly, and Kon really would’ve laughed, except for the fact that he was seriously concerned.

“Jesus _Christ_ , are you okay?” He had crossed the room before he even realized he was crossing the room to begin with, a hand raised somewhat uselessly.

“Yeah, fine! Hi, by the way.” Tim swatted his hand away and grimaced against what Kon guessed was an even mix of residual humiliation and a now-growing headache. “How long have you been standing there?”

“About four minutes?” Tim groaned audibly and rested his forehead on the counter with a much gentler thud.

“Hey, no-” Kon tried to say, raising his hand once more, but Tim just drowned him out with an even louder groan.

“Leave me here to _die_.” Kon was smiling again.

“I’d rather not, actually.” Tim crossed his arms in front of his head on the counter.

“Why are you here.” He drew out every word like he was in pain.

“To talk.” Kon leaned over the counter across from Tim, who shifted so that his eyes were peering out from behind his crossed arms and messy hair.

“Talk.” Tim ordered, still in some sort of self-inflicted shame-cube. Kon cleared his throat before he began.

“Well, um.” The speech that he had thought of in meticulous parts in Biology class earlier that week fell apart like it was made of ash, and all that was left was Tim, staring up at him through almost belligerently mused black hair, eyes blue and clear in a way that brought the word _concise_ to mind. They were decidedly blue eyes. “I guess that I- I think it’s fair that- I-” Tim kept on staring, like he wouldn’t look away for the end of the world. “I like you. Like, a lot. Like, I really like you a lot.” Kon fumbled out, a hand on the back of his neck, studying the countertop.

“Hey Kon?”

“Yeah.” He looked up at the sound of his name, eyes wide behind his glasses and lips pressed together tightly. Tim was grinning.

“I really like you a lot too.” And with that, Tim had turned around, hopped up on the counter, spun to face Kon, plucked his glasses off before setting them on the countertop, and effectively killed any distance that remained in between them.

It only took a few moment of moving lips to become teeth, to become nails on the back of his neck that would have left a mark on anyone else, to not-quite-end with Tim urgently muttering something that sounding vaguely like the word couch.

Tim wasn’t exactly _big_ , but he wasn’t _light_ either. Kon was pretty freakin’ strong though, certainly enough so that little time a well placed hand on Tim’s back and another well placed hand just a _little_ bit lower was enough to carry them both over to the sofa with sure steps. There was very little grace involved with getting arranged on the couch, but a whole lot of urgency, and Kon could do that.

Time was _soo_ not relevant, so Kon wasn’t keeping track of it. He was more keen on keeping track of Tim, who, for a relatively quiet dude, ended up being quite noisy.

“So what does this make us? We’re together as of like, ten minutes ago, right?” Tim didn’t respond with anything more than throaty noises, so Kon continued on rather breathlessly, “The undying question? Who wears the pants?” Tim pulled away at that, not by much more than a few inches, but Kon mourned the loss.

“I’ll fight you for them.” He didn’t see Tim smirk so much as he felt it. “But I don’t fight fair.” Tim proceeded to kill the rest of the conversation super effectively with lips and tongue and teeth that were becoming familiar. Kon was as sure as someone as pleasantly confused as he was could be that he could totally deal with never wearing the pants in a relationship again if it meant more of this.

Kon had lots and lots of words and they could wait, because right now Tim had a knee on either side of his waist, and was kissing him like he was leading up to something else.

“Take it to the bedroom boys, I like that sofa.” Kon had to blink a few times before he even registered Selina’s words as more than background noise, by which time Tim had propped himself up slowly. The short distance was enough to make Kon aware of two things; first, that his t-shirt was bunched around his armpits, and second, that Tim was not in the least surprised by the appearance of Selina. Which probably meant that he had been ignoring her.

“But _Mooooooom_.” He pouted theatrically. She sighed, not pausing as she put away groceries.

“I’m serious.”

“You know, for being you, you ended up being quite the cockblock.”

“I’m not blocking anything, just telling you to change locations before any of your consequences get on my sofa.”

“I hate you.”

“And when you scrunch your nose up like that, you look just like the cats.”

“You totally do.” Kon contributed absently.

“ _Shh_. No.” Tim frowned down at him, before telling him shortly. Selina gave a soft laugh.

“Once again, I’m serious. Bedroom. Also, I’m headed out for the night. I got you apple juice.”

“Thanks.” This was all terribly domestic and Tim was still sitting on his lap. Selina rounded the corner to her room with a short wave and a loaded wink.

“Have fun!”

*        *        *        *        *

Selina had business tonight. Not the fun kind, not the kind that made her money, and certainly not the kind that made her happy.

She was genuinely thrilled for Tim, who was back at the apartment tonight, hopefully doing things that normal Mothers would be horrified to think of their children doing. But, Selina and Tim fit the description normal just about as well Green Arrow could fly. Didn’t change the fact that they were a family now. It was about as small as a family could get, but it was hers, and that meant something.

She had business tonight, regarding her family. She stood on the roof of an unremarkable skyscraper and waited to be found. When the telltale rustle that only came from heavy folds became audible, she spoke.

"Hello _Batman_." The name felt sour and wrong crossing Selina’s lips. This was something that had always been bound to happen, an event circling the cowl, the death of Bruce Wayne and the ascension of another. The Batman before her was none other than Dick Grayson, and she really hadn't needed Tim to tell her that the first sidekick would be taking the one taking over. Apparently, Jason had put up quite the fight. Good for him, that little psycho.

"Hello, Catwoman.” She really didn't know where to take it after that. Dick had screwed Tim over, plain and simple, but Selina had always been selfish, admittedly so. She was happier to have Tim than she would ever be angry at Dick for sending him away. After all was said and done, Dick hadn’t meant to hurt Tim the way he did. He hadn't understood the depth of Tim's damage- because he hadn't asked. Dick was blinded to it by the responsibilities that now loomed over him.

"Long time no speak."

"We've been letting you do as you please based on the knowledge that you operate within certain parameters- and so long as you remain within those parameters, they will be respected."

"And because you couldn't catch me if you tried." Selina threw back immediately, with a coy smirk that completed her costume. It felt a little hollow at that particular moment.

Okay, she was a little bit angry at Dick. Her anger at Dick, however, would never surpass the fact that Dick had unknowingly sent her Tim. Selfish, and proud. The anger was the underscore of the simple fact that Dick hadn't been there. She was the one who got to remember Tim's nightmares, the occasional unbidden tear, his innumerable scars and that deep, shattering numbness. Dick laughed, oblivious.

"A little of that too. And because you showed up when I asked you nicely."

"Yeah, well." She sighed. "I'd rather work with you on my terms than face the wrath of the dynamic power-struggle." Dick grinned. It didn't suit the cowl. She wasn’t in the mood for small talk, so she put her hand on her hip and waited for the smile to melt away in silence.

"Stray." It came as more of a demand than a question, and his face settled into a more serious shape.

"What about him?" Her maternal streak flared to life. She crossed her arms over her chest, looking out over Gotham in a sort of stubborn refusal to meet Dick's eyes.

"Everything?"

"Nice try, Golden Boy. You can settle on what I decide to share." Her voice rang with a note of hostility. "He's my partner."

"Catwoman, you can't just pick up partners in crime-"

"But you can pick up any teenage boy with some basic training and a flare for the dramatic and call them your partner is justice? Nice try, but if you were your predecessor, I'd have slapped you for that one. Consider this your first and _only_ warning." She paused to glare at him pointedly. "He's trained, he knows what he's doing, and he's my responsibility. So, the big bad Batman can take a big bad step away from him. You can think whatever the hell you want about me, you can hunt me across the rooftops for the career I make in a costume, but you keep your distance from Stray. He's dealt with enough crap courtesy of Batman and Robin, and he's not your concern." _Anymore_ , hung in the air, unspoken. There was a long moment of wind against buildings, of the stars trying feebly, fruitlessly, to break through Gotham's smog. Of all the things she expected to happen next, it had not been Dick, asking in a clear and curious voice.

"Is he your son?" Without blinking, she replied.

"He is now."

*        *        *        *        *

Tim had several responsibilities at the museum.

It was one of the largest institutions of anthropology and history in the entire country, and doubled as a fine museum with displays that had been hard won. The irony of a cat-thief working at a museum was not lost on him, but Tim had long ago fallen into a simple sort of love with anthropology. He had always inteded to become an engineer, or a businessman, but. _But._

He had never been good at social interactions, _per se_ , but his natural abilities and training with Batman gave him the very precise ability to pick people apart. He understood the nature of people, and how temperament and environment influenced their choices and behavior. This was the quality that had earned him the position at the museum. He was an assistant of sorts, studying in a more hands on manner, under the tutelage of a wonderfully intimidating woman named Adrian Spite.

Dr. Spite was a woman of impressive stature and merit, holding more degrees and certifications than Tim could count on his fingers. She was also about two inches taller than him and consistently wore heels that were right in Selina’s league. She terrified most people at the institute by title alone; she held a great deal of power where peoples jobs were concerned. Tim respected her immensely, but he needed only to work with her and her department for a few days to realize that the sharp woman was also kind, and fiercely defensive of her own. As her assistant, Tim was included in that group.

Sometimes, Dr. Spite’s glasses caught the light in such a way that made him think of Barbara, or her shoes hit the tiled floor and he thought of Selina. When her eyes narrowed in consideration, she reminded him of Cassandra, and those occasional times that she laughed, the very whole sound brought Steph to mind.

She was just as perceptive as Tim, but there was a very slight disconnect between her understanding and her actions. When she saw Tim smiling like an idiot all day, she assumed he was faking it, upset over something personal, and gave him an extended lunch-hour to sort himself out.

The museum was hectic at best, so Tim accepted the offer gratefully.

A single call later had him sitting opposite Barbara at an on-campus cafe.

"So Cass knows." Babs stated simply, with a skeptical eyebrow raised. Tim shrugged and gave a single nod.

"Yeah. She came and found me. There wasn't much I could do."

"True enough." She shrugged back. Tim spun his coffee cup around and around on the table, staring at it's slow revolutions, before asking nonchalantly,

"But Dick?" Babs gave a small laugh and a reassuring smile.

"Tim, I don't think he could be any less inclined towards the connection."

"Good old Golden Boy." Tim laughed half-heartedly in return, while Babs continued on.

"Catwoman has established you as her own, so, no need to sprint in the opposite direction if you see a human-sized bat falling from the sky above you. Unless, of course, you have your hand dipped in the cookie jar that is what bids forth a master thief in a catsuit."

"Of course." Tim winked, and she seemed like she was getting used to the louder gestures and phrases that had become a part of his behavior. Running into Barbara at the manor was an experience as hilarious as it was awkward these days, because Tim was still pretending to be the person Dick had fired every single time he set foot in that building. The regression was forced, and to Barbara, who knew Tim, it seemed fake.

“It’s odd.” Babs mused. Tim hummed in lieu of a real response, waiting for her to finish her thought. “Dick and Damian are struggling, while you and Selina working together almost perfectly.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment?”

“You fit this better. Something about it feels less...” She trailed off, and Tim finished the sentence for her.

“Forced?” He smiled a little at the connection. Barbara and Tim had always been of like mind. She nodded along. “It feels that way, too. Robin was supposed to be temporary, you know. I was supposed to hold out, just long enough for Bruce to find the right person for the job. Didn’t work out that way, but.” Babs just nodded again, glasses flashing in the sun. Companionable silence fell between the pair, and Tim felt himself smiling into the brim of his coffee for no reason in particular.

"You look like the cat that caught the canary. _Spill."_

"Um... I caught the canary?" Tim felt the back of his neck heat up. Babs just grinned knowingly

"So that business with a certain Superboy panned out after all." Tim didn't spit coffee on himself, which was a small miracle in and of itself. Barbara just pushed up her glasses, causing them to flash in the sun. Tim winced.

"You _saw_ that?"

"I see everything." She grinned malevolently over the rim of her coffee.

"I sincerely hope that isn't true."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night."

"Well, the deep-seeded humiliation of that aside-" There was a small part of Tim’s brain that was screeching at him for being an idiot, another part that was reeling with paranoia because oh my god, and a very tiny part of his brain punching the air in victory. Barbara’s smirk just grew.

"Excuse me, you are the exobitionist, I am but the observer-"

" _That aside_ -" Tim gave her a short glare. "Yeah. Um, yeah. It panned out."

"Steph hasn't shut up about Stray since her little run in with him last week. I wouldn’t be surprised if you ran into her soon. Maybe along with a few of the Birds.” Tim just groaned and let his forehead hit the glass surface of the table between them with a resounding thud. It reminded them that there was a shallow sort of bruise there from where he had headbutted the counter-top a few days prior. She added, in a voice that was both chipper and matter-of-fact, "You brought this on yourself, you sexy bitch."

"It's a curse." Tim replied with a rather long-suffering expression. Babs just snorted.

"You _love_ it."

 

**BONUS SCENE: About Two Weeks Earlier**

"Selina, why is there Rihanna on my ipod?" Tim was leaning against the counter, eyebrows furrowed in Selina’s general direction. She grinned.

"It's your song Tim. I put it on your Ipod."

“ _S &M?_ By _Rihanna?_ ” She just smirked as he frowned at the screen. He gave her a lopsided shrug before he put the Ipod on the dock, playing the bass-heavy song at a nearly indecent volume for mid-afternoon on a Sunday. "How did you even get into my ipod?"

"You aren’t the only one with clever fingers." She wiggled her digits playfully at him as she stood, dancing in a rather leisurely manner around the apartment, intent on forcing Tim to join in. She grabbed his hands and shimmied their arms, laughing at Tim’s groan of protest.

“You are the _worst_.” Selina just quirked an eyebrow.

“Really? I’m the worst? You’re the one who dances like you you’re in pain.”

“I don’t always dance like I’m in pain.”

“Mmmm. I’ll believe it when I see it.” Tim had the audacity to wink at her, but the offended gasp she expelled was very much fake, because that definitely meant she had won. Selina exclaimed in a teasing voice,

"Tim! You have _hips_!" Of course he did, wearing a catsuit every night gave you a very specific understand of how to move your body. She should know.

"Where do you think I got them?" Tim smiled, pleased with his reference. Selina just crossed her arms, an eyebrow flying up toward her hairline.

"You got them from your mama? _Really?_ " Tim had returned to his book, previously left on the countertop. But he was still swaying, and replied with a simple, satisfied hum.

The next day, Selina was at the bank when she got a text. This wouldn’t have been at all startling, excuse the fact that her phone blared the tag line from a certain _Black Eyed Peas_ song at an obnoxious volume. Selena scrambled to retrieve her cell phone and apologized profusely. The offending text made her smile widely.

_You aren’t the only one with clever fingers._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whooooooooooo okay. This chapter was not beta'd, so be merciful. It was also so long that I ended up cutting a scene and moving it over. If you've never heard S&M by Rihanna, go listen to it, and just have a good laugh.


	9. Blur

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim accidentally makes friends. It's very strange for all parties involved.

Tonight was one of _those_ nights.

 

Cullen hated those nights.

 

_These?_

 

_Those._

 

Anyway.

 

They were worse than the nights he forgot to return his books to the library, or the nights he got stuck closing at the grocery store where he worked, or even the nights he forgot about every obligation he had and stayed up until dawn watching Supernatural.

 

This was one of the nights he got cornered a few blocks away from the apartment he shared with his sister by the far, _far_ less than intelligent douchebags that were more casually known as his peers from high school.

 

Cullen managed to deftly stop every insult that came flooding to his mind as the one, two, three, four, _five_ boys gathered round, arms hanging loose like the prehistoric ingrates they were.

 

_This wasn’t fair._

 

Cullen had been under the thumb of this particular group of assholes for years, unable to do more than rely on his sister to make a statement and keep moving forward. Harper and he couldn’t afford Cullen fighting back properly, the way he wanted too, the way they both wanted too, in every sense of the the phrase _couldn’t afford._

He wondered what it would be this time. A split lip and a black eye, broken ribs, torn clothes and cut hair? Or maybe just a kick to the stomach and words that he told himself vehemently didn’t hurt as bad as they used too.

 

_Sticks and stones leave scratches and bruises, words just suck a lot, please don’t break my wrist, I can’t afford it._

 

Before they could get close enough to Cullen for any kind of _breaking_ to begin, a shadow dropped from the sky.

 

Probably dropped from the fire escape overhead, _but._

 

Cullen’s first thought was Batman.

 

When the figure before him was so obviously not Batman, his second thought was, _Catwoman?_

 

He was right on the Cat part, at least.

 

He saw ears, and goggles, dark hair and flashing eyes.

 

“Get out of here.” The figure ordered. Cullen didn’t move as _unnamed savior_ sprung into action, taking each bully apart with brutal efficiency. Something about his movements was clinical, decisive. Cullen observed, his heart racing and ears turning pink in a manner that was the very opposite of clinical.

 

His lips were a pinkish red smear against a monochrome blur. Every part of him was a plane or an angle, milky pale coated in taut black, more like his skin had been dipped in ink rather than covered with leather.

 

There was a thigh choke happening, a move Cullen was pretty sure came straight out of the Avengers, except this wasn’t Black Widow, and it was happening right in front of him, and it was _so much better_.

 

Cullen briefly considered a life of crime. It would all be worth it if it ended in that particular thigh choke.

 

There was only one bully left standing, and he was backing away with hands raised in a gesture of surrender. The figure was stalking him, offering him an expression that wasn’t as much a smile as it was a baring of teeth. The bully’s back hit the wall, and then a single clawed hand clamped around his throat like a vice. Cullen stared as the figure _hissed_ at the bully, just loud enough for him to catch.

 

“I have a very close friend. He wears a red helmet, he hates assholes, and he loves guns. If I were to do so much as make him aware of your meaningless existence, he would track you down and put a bullet in each of your kneecaps. Those two would be from me. Then, it would be his turn, and what he lacks in theme costume, he makes up for in creativity. So, leave, and don’t come back.” With that, the figure bounced his head off the wall with enough force to knock him unconscious, and allowed him to slide to the ground. He then turned his attention to Cullen.

 

“I thought I told you to leave. Are you okay?” _I will never be not okay again you beautiful creature._

 

Cullen was _in love,_ that’s what he was but, he hastened a safer reply of,

 

“Um, yeah. Fine. Thanks.” There were five unconscious people in the alleyway with them, and Cullen really only cared about the well-being of the one who had intervened on his behalf. “Are you okay?”

 

“I think I chipped a nail. Not like a fake pointy one, but like, a real one, underneath.” He was pouting a little, as he pulled the glove on his left hand off, at the end of each finger in an odd order that Cullen figured probably meant something to the mechanics or safety measures, and then all the way off by the wrist. He held up his hand for inspection, throwing into relief a corded scar in the shape of the number nine on his palm and just like that, Cullen knew who the wearer of the catsuit was.

 

Cullen had no explanation outside of the fact that he remembered useless information and facts. Dolphins, besides humans, are the only mammals that have recreational sex. The pea is the oldest known vegetable. There was a photo of Tim Drake, that had graced the front of a newspaper a little over a year before, in which he had been waving politely with his left hand. Cullen remembered that the flash of a camera had exposed a knot of scar tissue on his hand, in the shape of a nine.

 

Tim Drake had a scar on his left palm in the shape of a warped nine.

 

_Oh god it was creepy that he knew that._

 

 _Oh_ god, _Tim Drake in a catsuit just assaulted five manchildren in an alleyway to protect him._

 

Cullen froze with eyes that felt the size of dinner plates as Tim Drake inspected his fingernail carefully. A fingernail on a hand that had just been on the throat of another, albeit lesser, human being.

 

And, true to form, before Cullen had been able to remind himself to keep some semblance of composure, he broke the silence with something that managed to be both a mumble and a blurt.

 

“You’re _Tim Drake_?” Sure enough, his head snapped up just as Cullen’s jaw snapped shut.

 

“What did you just say?”

 

“Nothing. I said nothing. I-”

 

“You said a name.” Tim’s eyes had narrowed, and through amber lenses the blue became ambiguous. The lenses, however, did nothing to lessen their cutting quality. “Why did you say that name?” Cullen began to backpedal physically, as if he was trying so hard to talk his way out of this situation that his entire body had to become involved. Tim tooks slow steps after him, almost like a prowl.

 

“I said no such thing. I don’t even know what to call you at all. Thank you very much for your help with these plebeians, Not-Catwoman, but if you’ll-” Cullen squeaked a little as he caught his heel on one of the unconscious idiots.

 

“Stray. When I’ve got the costume on, I go by Stray.”

 

“Well, Stray, Sir, my sister is expecting me home any minute now, so I really ought to...” Cullen trailed off, before trying in a voice an octave higher than it had been since any given time past the eighth grade. “I’m sorry?” Stray just blinked.

 

“Why?”

 

“Um-”

 

“Why did you say Tim Drake?” When he asked the question, it sounded like _How did you know?_ There was no denying it now, not in Cullen’s mind, one of those things that became suddenly apparent and never went away. Black hair, blue eyes obscured by amber lenses, making them seem almost green at first glance. Pale skin, the right height and age, albeit in far better shape than Cullen had ever been previously inclined. Tim didn’t look particularly angry, just dangerous in that feral sort of manner he seemed to _exude._ It didn’t really frighten Cullen, or at least, not after he had seen Tim-as-Stray defend him for no particular reason aside from it being the fundamentally right thing to do. So he replied honestly, hoping for the best.

 

“Scar. On your hand. Tim Drake has one that looks just like it. A little distinctive, but, you shouldn’t really be concerned with it because I just notice stuff like that. Not that I’m saying you are Tim Drake, just that you two have a rather similar scar on your left palm-” Cullen’s sentence ended halfway through with a laugh that was both forced and a tiny bit hysterical. Tim grinned a little at him, approaching a leer.

 

“You know my name.” And there it was, the confirmation, like Tim had seen through him like he was wax paper and watched the information lock itself in place a moment before. Cullen’s back hit the wall and the air left his lungs with a distinctive sort of rush that was not from the impact, but rather the blatant invasion of personal space that was Stray, smile dangerous and eyes curious. “Even the playing field?” With that his eyelids dropped, and he was looking up at Cullen through his eyelashes, and woah, he might have been right on with the earlier use of the word _love_ -

 

“Cullen. Row. Cullen Row.” He managed without an aborted declaration of hormonally induced passion.

 

“Well, Cullen.” Stray- Tim, curled a single hand under his chin, the claws catching lightly on his skin. “We are going to have a nice, long conversation about nothing in particular while I decide what to do with you.”

 

“Are we?”

 

“We are. Now lead on, Cullen Row, I’d rather not be here when the cavalry arrives. I have a rather strained relationship with the GCPD, and I’d rather not test those waters tonight.”

 

*        *        *        *

 

Tim Drake was wearing a catsuit and lying on his bed.

 

He had his eyes trained on Cullen, considering him carefully, as Cullen fumbled for words to break the non-silence that went with a shitty apartment in crime alley. Traffic outside, thin walls, wind and neighbours and people in alleys.

 

“I had this dream once.” Cullen muttered. Tim’s eyes narrowed at the same instant that Cullen’s eyebrows flew up, because that had totally been out loud.

 

“What?”

 

“What?” Cullen shot back immediately, feigning nonchalance, and waiting for the inevitable challenge. Instead, the door flew open.

 

Harper entered the room as she always did, a flurry of moving limbs and loud words. Tim’s attention shifted off of him and it was tangible, and he sighed loudly before trying to make sense of his sister.

 

She looked between Cullen and Tim, trying to make any kind of sense of the scene before her. Cullen would have offered an explanation if he had a grasp on any words. Unfortunately, at that precise moment, English eluded him. Harper cleared her throat once before asking,

 

“Is this a sex thing?” Cullen choked on nothing in particular, and Tim burst out laughing. “I’ll take that as a no.” She closed the door lightly, careful of the broken hinge. Tim responded around a light drawl.

 

“Take however you want, let’s just say you’ve effectively killed the need for a safe word.” She sort of had, he thought, when she burst into the room with no warning. Cullen grinned.

 

“But you haven’t done the same with my need for an explanation. Like, _now_.” She was staring expectantly at Cullen. Just waiting for him to tell her everything she wanted to know. And Cullen knew that without a doubt, he would. The last time he had tried to hide something from her had been more than a year ago, and had directly resulted in the first assault he had suffered, in their own apartment, while Harper attended a Wayne Gala. On his order to bring Tim Drake back to their apartment so Cullen could steal him away, no less.

 

Cullen blinked hard. _His life was an edgy HBO program._

 

“Oh.” Tim cocked his head to one side, eyebrows furrowed and looking decidedly cat-like. “And you _are_ going to explain it to her.” He tutted, feigning disappointment. “I really thought we had something Cullen Row.”

 

“He knows your name?” Harper had her mom voice. The situation was escalating. Mom voice meant that Harper had decided Stray was dangerous, which was entirely true, probably even more so than Cullen himself had witnessed.

 

“Well, he is on my bed...” Cullen laughed a little at his own joke, his attempt at comic relief withering and dying the face of the pulsing nuclear meltdown that was becoming the tension in the room. Tim tried next, his nostrils flaring and eyes running at a leisurely pace across the room. Cullen saw the assessment in the action, Stray wasn’t dumb, he was looking at his options.

 

“No need to worry, Big-Sister Row. I haven’t yet decided what to do with Cullen, but I’m not going to hurt him.” On some level, Cullen knew that already. Which is probably why his brain failed to stop his body when he gasped theatrically.

 

“I really thought we had something, _Stray._ ” Costume name for emphasis. He got a smile in return that wasn’t half as feral as any he had seen before, just amused.

 

“You’re catching on.”

 

“I’ve been told I’m a fast learner.” Had the situation permitted it in any way, shape, or form, that would have been the point that he attempted to brain himself on the nearest wall, because apparently his filters were failing completely tonight. “ _Harper_.” He used her name deliberately, capturing the attention of both parties before the next cold war could occur in the bedroom he shared with his sister. “He protected me. Earlier. It’s okay, honestly.”

 

_“From?"_

 

“You know what from, the same five guys it’s always from.”

 

“Always?” Tim asked, anger dominating his voice, at the same time Harper asked in the exact same tone, “Again?”

 

They shared a look, something that wasn’t quite a mutual glare.

 

“They won’t be coming back.” Tim’s voice was final. Harper didn’t buy it.

 

“What makes you so sure?” Tim’s smile was the razor-blade in halloween candy that good parent’s warned their kids about.

 

“Because if they ever do come back, I will have them shot. They’ve been warned, and that is as much kindness as they will be extended. Cullen here,” He waved in Cullen’s general direction. “Will tell me if they do so much as breathe in his direction in a semi-threatening manner.”

 

“You’d have them killed?”

 

“I said shot, not killed. Then again, I don’t control the Red Hood, I would just put the situation in his more than capable hands.”

 

“The _Red Hood_?” Harper’s eyes widened.

 

“ _Mhmm._ Don’t tell him about the more than capable bit, can’t have his head getting too big for his helmet.”

 

“Okay this is all cute and disturbingly domestic, but it still doesn’t explain why you are in my apartment, Stray.”

 

“Because Cullen is smarter than almost anyone else in this gutter of a city, and I unwisely removed my left glove, effectively revealing to him my secret identity.” He finished the drawling response with spirit fingers and rolled eyes. Harper turned on Cullen, causing him to jump a little.

 

_“You did what.”_

 

“I _scienced_ his identity out of him. Because I’m smarter than almost anyone else in this gutter of a city.” Cullen smiled. Harper did not.

 

“So, who is he then?” She pointed without uncrossing her arms. Tim sighed more than he spoke.

 

“Wow, you aren’t fun at all.”

 

“This isn’t a game.” Harper was glaring hard now. Cullen watched rather helplessly as the tension escalated.

 

“It’s all a game, you’re just jealous of my costume.” Tim slid off his bed like oil through water, and Cullen blinked, trying to remind himself that he was in fact awake, and this was _in fact_ _happening_. Harper just frowned.

 

“You do realize that the second you leave, he’s going to tell me what you name is, right?” Tim made quick work of her personal space, voice stark without the playful edge.

 

“And you do realize that running into the streets and shouting at the top of your lungs that Tim Drake in a catsuit is fighting crime in the narrows is not going to get you the kind of attention that hurts me in any way, right?” The room fell silent for a long minute, before Harper exploded.

 

“You’re _Tim Fucking Drake?!_ ”

 

“Well, my middle name is actually Jackson, but I think I like that better-” She turned on Cullen.

 

“Is this some kind of joke?!”

 

“It’s not a joke, it’s a game. Didn’t we do this already?” Harper looked about four seconds away from hitting Tim, and Cullen knew just how that would end.

 

Apparently, self defense at the YMCA had nothing on Tim Drake in a catsuit.

 

“Hey guys, I-”

 

Tim and Harper shushed him at the same time, and Cullen was pretty sure they harmonized.

 

“I should go.”

 

“Maybe.” Harper’s voice was clipped. Tim plucked a sharpie off the nightstand, and quickly eliminated Cullen’s personal space. Tim snatched his left hand, scrawling a phone number on his palm in black ink. He capped the marker and purposefully folded Cullen’s hand around it.

 

“You need to call me if those guys ever do so much as speak to you again, okay? Or, you know,” Tim winked. “If you want to hang out. Secret ID’s are a big secret to carry, and for now, I’m going to try to trust you. Don’t make that be a mistake?” Cullen was grappling for words, for something to say that would make Tim sure his secret was safe, or make him stay. Harper was the one who spoke, as Tim flipped the lock on the window.

 

“Why did you protect my brother?”

 

“Why not?” Tim replied airly, not turning. Harper stubbornly bit back.

 

“Because this is Gotham, and your not the goddamn Batman-”

 

“I was close. Once.” Cullen blinked. This conversation had been over a minute ago, and now, it was decidedly _not._ “I decided to help your brother because I was nearby at the time. He didn’t call for help. He didn’t expect help.” He’s in the room. “That’s not okay. The Batman I knew wouldn’t let that happen, and I-” Tim’s eyes were closed with enough force to have visibly distorted his features when he turned.

 

“I stepped in because no one else was going to. Not anymore.” He made to leave, but Harper cut in a second time.

 

“Cullen isn’t going to call you.” Cullen was about to say something about that because, he really _really_ was going to call, but Harper barreled on, voice softer than it had been for the duration of the covnersation, but still forceful. “Cullen isn’t going to call you because those guys aren’t going to come back. But you are. In a pair of jeans, maybe, or wahtever it is you wear while the sun is up.” Tim’s eyes widened.

 

“I’m going to keep your secret, don’t worry. You stuck up for my little brother, and that makes you good in my book, but, I’d like to know whose secret I’m keeping. So Cullen isn’t going to call you, but.” She shrugged. “Consider this an open invitation.” An expression flashed across Tim’s face, shock and a smile that was far too small and sweet to belong to Stray, before Tim ducked his chin, looking up with carefully blank features.

 

“Consider it considered, Harper. Cullen.” He nodded to each of them before dropping out of the window like a stone. It was a long minute before Harper spoke blandly.

 

“Don’t fall in love with him.” Cullen replied without hesitation.

 

“ _Tooooooooo_ late.”

 

*        *        *        *        *

 

It was almost frightening to Tim, how easily Stray came to him now, how organic, _natural_ it felt.

 

On his first nights out, he had felt as though he had been shoved onto Gotham’s centre stage without having ever seen a script. Unprepared. Exposed. Although, he supposed, the exposed feeling could be more due to the costume change.

 

Now, Stray was an extension of himself. What had first been a clumsy graft had become a fine line had become a gradient.

 

There were still parts he held separate and sterile inside his mind. Timothy Drake-Wayne, Alvin Draper, Caroline Hill, Robin. But Stray had bled into him, like food colouring dissipating through clear water, not leaving a stain so much as a soft pigment in its wake. Robin had left stains. White and red lines, criss-crossing across pale skin, the visible signs of damage that had been survived.

 

He did not regret his scars.

 

He did not regret _Robin_.

 

A lot of Stray had been born of Robin, or at least, the late days of Robin. Hardened by death, trained so thoroughly that he had to put in conscious effort to hold back, unaware of when he had stopped fighting to protect and started fighting to survive. Other parts had come with the costume. Catwoman was a creature of pleasure. She was a ribbon caught in the wind, not caring unless she chose too.

 

Tim liked that the most about Stray. The undefined ability to _choose._

 

Stray was a little of something uniquely his as well. A calculated sort of coldness, words that pushed and pulled with an intensity that was almost tangible. A smile that ran like a key across a car door.

 

Tim didn’t count on Gotham for much. He had just learnt to expect. His city, dirty and dark and terrible. He liked it better without the sugarcoat, he knew that when the sun broke through the smog, all the light did was expose the stained pavement. He expected from Gotham what she would always have to offer.

 

One of those things was petty crime, and a generally disappointing scope of the human condition.

 

Tonight wasn’t a stealing night. It was a crime fighting night.

 

Or, so he had thought it was. That had been the idea, until he came across a box of kittens discarded in an alleyway.

 

There was a joke in there somewhere, but there was no way Tim was leaving them there.

 

What was left of them, at least. Two live ones. The only two that mattered, Tim told himself firmly.

 

There was a certain balance to be played, as far as Gotham. If you always expected Batman and Robin, then paranoia would buckle you like an aluminium can. If you never expected Batman and Robin, then you’re hubris would land you in Blackgate, or Arkham, or one of the lesser knowns in between.

 

Tim wasn’t too surprised when Robin cornered him on his way back home, box tucked under one arm. A little annoyed. Hardly prepared mentally for this conversation. Not in the mood to fight.

 

“Stray-”

 

“For the love of Christ, do not say _we meet again._ ” Tim completed the dry remark with air quotations. The white lenses that were the eyes of _Robin_ narrowed.

 

“Fine.” Silence fell, excepting the soundscape that Gotham provided. Rattling, car tires on slick pavement, wind cutting across the surface of buildings.

 

“Wow, you are really good at the whole banter thing. A prodigy.”

 

“I should arrest you.” Damian said, bluntly.

 

“Oh, and you have _finesse_. I must say, I am impressed by the overall effect.”

 

“And what effect, pray tell, is that?” Damian scowled, and Tim smiled, rolling his shoulders while replying in a deadpan voice.

 

“Why, the grin and hope that only Robin and his sunny disposition can bring, of course.”

 

“And what effect are you hoping to achieve in a-” Damian stalled, seeking the correct word. “ _That._ ” And failing apparently, settling instead on a pointed sort of wave at Tim’s entirety. He snorted, considered his response.

 

“There are only two true motives, fear and desire.” Tim gestured with his hands, knowing that the move would annoy Damian. “Now, no one in Gotham is ever going to fear anything more than they fear _the Batman_ , so what does that leave for the rest of us? _Desire_. It’s my job to make people desire something more than they could fear you. Not Robin, but what follows.”

 

“That does _not_ make any sense, what does thievery have to-”

 

“Think about it little bird. Desire is not so far from fear as we would like to believe. The same goes for you and I. Not so different at all.” It appeared that Damian did not want to think about it at all.

 

“What have you got?” Tim could tell that there was a quality to Damian’s voice that he was hiding. It was lost on his tone, but not the articulation of his sentences. Probably an accent of some kind, and Tim knew why without having needed to think about it. Damian was trying to be the Robin Gotham had always accepted, and the boy Bruce had already chosen to be his son, even it meant being someone he was not.

 

Tim tilted his head at the revelation.

 

Damian was not as different as he had thought.

 

Entitled, _yes_. Obnoxious, _absolutely._

 

Capable, and insecure.

 

A _kid._ Ten years old and swelling his chest with effort to make himself look larger than he felt.

 

“A test.” Damian’s domino scrunched in a way that meant he had just raised an eyebrow. “Is the anti-Robin capable of compassion?” He flinched, almost imperceptibly at the name. It had potential though, to be something that didn’t sting. Replacement.

 

“I’m not a sociopath-”

 

“One in ten people are, kiddo, and trust me, you and I are included the former of that particular statistic. Own it, don’t avoid it.” Damian just blinked. He was out of his comfort zone on this, or rather, there was no overlap between his comfort zone and what Dick as Batman would have him do were he present. Tim’s paranoia spiked at the thought of Batman being present.

 

“What of this _test?_ ” Tim set the box down on the rooftop, gently plucking two small, rather helpless looking animals out of the dirty cardboard. One kitten yowled, the noise thin and strangled. The other kitten remained silent, barely stirring in his hand. Tim didn’t look up from the small animals when he asked.

 

“How do you feel about cats?”

 

“I like them, I-” Damian’s voice sounded small. Vulnerable. “Are they dying?”

 

“Yes. But that can be prevented.”

 

“How? Tell me how.” He sounded eager now. Genuine, too. Tim looked the kittens over, taking time to ensure that Damian was just on the edge of frustration, before explaining.

 

“This is Arya. She needs to be fed by hand for at least another three weeks.”

 

“Arya?”

 

“She’s not everything she’s supposed to be, but when she learns to love those parts of herself regardless of the expectations set for her, she becomes better than those expectations.” It was impossible to see Damian’s eyes soften, but Tim watched as the corner of his mouth dipped down, hinting at something like empathy, or maybe just sadness. “She’s also _loud_.” Damian took her with careful fingers, and who would’ve guessed that pets were the demon's weakness.

 

Tim got that though. Pets didn’t judge you. They just gave what they got. And no matter how many times Damian proved himself, there would be someone who wanted more. Tim knew that Damian was far too intelligent to overlook that, and yet, he was in Gotham by choice.

 

Tim did not deserve to have Robin taken from him. But Damian did not deserve to be judged on the mere premise of his existence. The child of the Batman, the child of the Demon’s Head, neither a legacy he chose, but both of which he bore.

 

Damian was crass, and ignorant, and _arrogant_ , and a child. Tim was learning to forgive.

 

“I don’t know how-”

 

“Figure it out. This is a test, remember? Whether you pass it or fail it is entirely up to you.”

 

“What about...” Damian gestured vaguely at the kitten Tim still had.

 

“This is Sansa. Sometimes, strength isn’t about the fight. It’s about pragmatism, and choosing to stay loyal to certain parts of yourself at the cost of others.” Tim smiled down at the kitten in his palm, before meeting Damian’s eyes. “Two sides of the same coin, not as opposite as one might think.”

 

“ _-Tt-._ ” Was Damian’s first response. His next was unexpected, to say the least. “You aren’t half-bad, for a thief. Insightful, if slightly whimsical. Don’t let me catch you committing a crime of any kind, and-” He paused, as if re-considering something. Tim prodded,

 

“And?”

 

“I will pass your test. I swear it.” He had Arya tucked close against his chest. Tim spoke honestly.

 

“I’m sure you will.”

 

*        *        *        *

 

Tim was visiting Wayne Manor.

 

Or at least, that was the _pretense._

 

Tim was checking to see how Damian was doing with Arya, or rather, if he needed to intercede on the kittens behalf.

 

He was fiddling with his glasses in the foyer when a hiss came from the stairwell, his attention snapping into focus like a spring coming back into its coil.

 

“Drake.” Tim blinked until he found Damian, crouched low and hidden behind banisters. He waited for a moment before prompting.

 

“Damian.”

 

"What do you know about cats?" Tim was cut evenly between keen curiousity and fear that Damian had somehow pieced together some semblance of the truth.

 

_“Why?”_

 

“Follow me.” Tim did. Curiosity killed the cat, he supposed. Or, just got him outed to his pseudo-family as a thief. Or perhaps killed by a ten year old assassin that he had misjudged.

 

Tim followed Damian.

 

He entered the boy’s room with the slightest hesitation, hands in his pockets and smirk tugging at the corner of his lips as Damian stuck his head out the door none-too-discretely. Tim could picture the dry smile on Alfred’s face, had he seen the action.

 

“What’s going on, Damian?” Tim put on his best tired voice.

 

“I need to save this cat.”

 

“Why not ask Dick for help? He usually-”

 

"Because Grayson said no more pets. He can't know." A note of desperate had crept into Damian’s voice, and something like guilt crept into the hollow of Tim’s chest. Damian was torn between disappointing his mentor, and the sense of obligation Stray had instilled regarding Arya the kitten.

 

_Whoops._

 

“How have you been feeding her?” Tim asked, trying and suceeding in sounding a little surprised and generally intrigued by the situation.

 

“A plastic syringe.”

 

“Clever.”

 

“Google works _wonders.”_ Damian frowned, and Tim thought the expression was directed at Damian’s own inadequacy. As though he should have known already. “I have had to make due with milk from the kitchen, although, I understand there are substances better suited to her needs?”

 

“Yeah, I can pick some up from the vet for you. If you want.” Arya was just a bit to large to lay in the palm of his hand, but she made do and keened loudly once or twice for good measure. Damian must have been putting in quite the effort to keep her concealed, although, Tim doubted that Alfred was not aware of her presence.

 

“That would prove most helpful, Drake.”

 

“You can call me Tim.”

 

“ _Or,_ I could call you _Drake._ ”

 

“Whatever you want, _Dami_.” Damian grimaced at the nickname, but retaliated quickly with another question. This went on for quite a while. Damian asked a question, somewhat self-conciously, Tim answered simply and made a number of promises that he fully intended on keeping.

 

“If Grayson is to discover her and react badly, could I-” Tim watched as Damian swallowed his pride for this last question, a real, physical act. “Could I ask you to take her?”

 

“Why not ask me to take her now?”

 

“Because she is my responsibility, Drake, surely you have some vague concept of what that means?” Tim raised an eyebrow and Damian shrank a little. “And... She is not a bad companion. Assuredly smarter than most cats.” Tim laughed softly.

 

“Yeah, Damian. If Dick decides to be, well, _a dick_ , you can give me a call.”

 

“Excellent, Drake.” Tim waited for Damian to spit the rest of his sentence out. “There may be hope for you after all.”

 

“Maybe, huh?” Tim chuckled once at the closest thing to a thank you he was going to get, before standing. “I better get going, but, I’ll swing by tomorrow with the supplies for your little secret, okay?” Damian simply nodded his dismissal.

 

Tim was greeted at the bottom of the stairs by a very _tired_ looking Dick, whose eyebrows raised in surprise at the sight of him.

 

“Hey, Tim! When did you get here?” Tim made a small production out of checking his watch.

 

“About an hour ago, I guess.” He sighed.

 

“You were just...” Dick sought a feasible explanation. “Upstairs?” Tim nodded, his gaze drifting towards the front door. Quite honestly, he was tired, and wanted to go _home._

 

"Yeah, I was hanging out with Damian." Dick made a choked sort of noise before blurting out.

 

“Excuse me? It _sounded_ like you just said-” And just like that, Tim’s patience was spent, and he cut Dick off with a blunt voice.

 

"Damian has a kitten right now, and he was too afraid to ask you for help with it. He obviously picked it up on patrol, and if he hadn’t, it would be dead. If you don’t let him keep it, I will come back here and shove an escrima stick so far up your ass you will choke. _Clear?_ " It took a few seconds for Dick to process.

 

"Um. Yeah, understood.” Tim smiled, sickeningly sweet, intentionally unpleasant, and very much _Stray._

 

“It was good to see you, Dick.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was a struggle. Hope you enjoy the continuity toss-up that is the cast of this fic, but, hey, it's my sandbox. Tim needed some friends that weren't included in the group family or being lied to, and Cullen and Harper are excellent characters who don't get enough love or recognition. I'm terribly sorry about the sheer length of time it took for this update to happen, and all thanks to it actually happening need to go to Bucket over on tumblr. She's a wonderful artist, extremely talented, and has even done some pieces for this fic. You can find her at datbukkit. Thank you all for your Patience.


	10. Thick As Thieves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stray meets Batman, and Tim realizes the true nature of collateral damage in a city that is two parts circus, one part kingdom, and a dash of costume fanaticism.

Tim was lounging.

 

It had never been a luxury he had afforded to himself in his days as Robin, always pushing, struggling towards the ideal that Jason’s death had created in Bruce’s mind. Not a good soldier, a perfect soldier.

 

He had enough scars to prove that perfect soldiers were few and far between in a city without meta’s. He had a dead mentor to prove that perfect leaders did not exist anywhere.

 

_Skin broke, and so did heroes._

 

The thing about scars was that you didn’t _earn_ them. They were not so much marks of survival to Tim as they were reminders of failures, and then of almosts in a time where final repose seemed like the only way to escape the ghosts that he had gathered.

 

Timothy Drake and his ghosts. All his dead friends and family, lined up around the corner, lead on by the ghost of Robin, that perfect soldier, defined as a ghost by one quality; Just another thing Tim hadn’t lost so much as he had failed to save. Funny, he thought, how the ghost of a failed friend could feel so much like the presence of enemy.

 

He had scars that stretched across his skin like constellations on a pale sky, a play on contrast. Constellations of dark and white, of blotted burns and finely sharpened blades, carved across his skin and slow to fade.

 

And now he lounged. Nobodies soldier, not a ghost at his heels. Nothing to force him anywhere he felt no inclination towards going. Only his thoughts, circling as they most always did like sharks around the hint of blood in salt water. Easier now to keep at bay than he had ever thought was possible.

 

Tim held in one hand a short string of old pearls. These were taken from no uptown Tiffany’s, and had only cost Tim patience and the use of a password that had not taken Tim enough time at all to guess. These pearls were from the safe of the late Bruce Wayne, and were headed home with him.

 

These pearls had once belonged to Martha Wayne, and would soon belong to Selina Kyle.

 

She had earned as much, Tim thought. She had loved Bruce, for all his stunted and damn-near childish antics. They hadbeen beautiful. Broken in equal measure, and desperate to fill the empty, aching parts of themselves.

 

Given time, they could have learned to live as two single wholes. They would never have needed each other, never been two halves of a whole. They were close to something better. That singular and truest form of love, the simple ability to love every part of another human being and be loved in return. Not to fill those empty places, but to soothe the ache, and cease the echo.

 

These were all that remained of Bruce Wayne, true and whole, and Selina deserved more than the pittance that they were.

 

That’s what Tim figured, at least.

 

After putting all this stock into ghosts and love, Tim couldn’t help but begin to think of Kon-

 

And get rudely interrupted by the presence of another atop the roof top on which he lounged.

 

Tim did two things at once; The first was to tuck the pearls safely away in his utility belt, and the second was to cast a sideways glance across the from the ledge that he was sprawled on. All he could make out was an all too familiar shadow, accompanied by the sinking feeling that the silence of Batman had always brought on. Tim felt as though he had done something wrong, disappointed someone in some way, because some responses that the years had conditioned into him apparently just didn’t go away.

 

He had been waiting for this moment for so long, and yet, it felt like he had just bit down on aluminium foil- _he wasn’t ready._

 

Something like panic settled in his stomach, and his joints felt suddenly stiff with adrenaline. It was a nervous response that Tim Drake had always had to acute anxiety, and as far as his older brother was concerned, it was a _tell._ There was no way to escape this meeting, nowhere to run that he wouldn't be followed, but as far as Dick knew, he was meeting Stray for the first time.

 

And Tim could _make_ that true.

 

Tim committed then, to the idea of Stray, the concept of his suit, this new skin he wore proudly, the principle of a cat costume on the rooftops of Gotham. He then remembered the ten year old boy who was obsessed with Dick Grayson, that shard in a pile of broken pieces, of things he used to be, and tried to turn it into something he could use. There was so little of Dick Grayson in Batman, but Tim was relying on suspended disbelief and raw hope that his eldest brother wasn’t going to recognize him.

 

“Good evening, _sir_. How can I help you?” His voice came out languid, saccharine, perfect. Tim sank into the purr of a question, the dorky part of his brain locked down securely and punching the air in victory. Another part of him, the part that firmly believed Dick was his brother, curled up in a defensive little ball and prepared for the punishment of this conversation. He more or less rolled into a standing position, stretching widely the entire time, both as a pretense and a precaution.

 

“I just want to talk.” Dick was grinning, and it was so not kosher with the cowl. Tim just grinned back, letting the smile twist until it settled on something that felt like the sound of keys against a car door.

 

“Oh, so the new Batman fights with words.” The cowl moved in a manner that looked deceptively like an eyebrow being quirked. “How diplomatic.”

 

“You knew the old Batman?” It was barely a question, losing the edge of question in a voice that had first belonged to Bruce. Tim supposed it was symbolic, that even the voice of Batman belonged to the myth, and never to the man.

 

“Everyone knew the old Batman. Everyone knows the new Batman. In case you haven’t noticed, Batman is sort of a thing for Gotham.” This elicited a half-cough that was obviously Dick aborting a chuckle when he remembered that there were no chuckles, only justice in this costume. Tim let out a laugh of his own, a little more stilted and a little bit closer to the top of his vocal range than he would like to admit.

 

“I came here to talk about something in particular, Stray, not just in circles.”

 

_Stray._

 

It was _working._

 

“Ohh. _Serious voice_.” Tim’s voice was still low, just the right note of playfulness and an almost wistful quality that made it foreign to Dick, who looked steadily unimpressed. “And suddenly, two for one, a scowl and a cowl. Where did I go wrong?”

 

“Why are you doing this?”

 

“Well, it depends on what you mean by _this._ ” Tim ran his hand across the rooftop entrance to the building on which they stood, working a circle in light steps around Dick, forcing him to turn to keep an eye on him. Keeping him focused on movement, and not content. “Let’s just say that tights suit you.” Dick blinked once, and almost lost the growl in his voice to a single note of amusement.

 

“I meant thievery.”

 

“I’m _offended_. The minions must have informed you that I do more than just steal.” Dick did nothing that Tim could gauge as a response, so he continued. “Well, I’ve gotta make a living somehow.” He said, instead of, _we share a trust fund_ , letting the bastardized English of a Gotham-born accent slip. Something that he made artfully look like an accident. _A slip._

 

“Why don’t I believe it’s that simple.”

 

“Because it’s in your nature.” _Batman’s_ nature. Not Dick Grayson’s. And suddenly, Tim understood why the cowl was so heavy on Dick’s shoulders. He had always seen the best in people, and Batman was forced to see every part of a person, coldly assess each piece like a puzzle, and decide which piece would cause the most damage if removed. “And because it’s not that simple. But alas, I didn’t come here for a heart-to-heart, I came up here to relax. _Alone._ ” Tim added pointedly.

 

“And yet...” Dick trailed off, crossing his arms. Tim followed suit, adding in an eye roll and a cocked hip.

 

“Oh yes, here we are. But facts being facts, you have enough on your plate without adding _Second Cat Thief Enters Stage Left_ to the list, so what do you really want, Batman? To define our working relationship?”

 

“Well, I can’t exactly deal with you the way the old Batman dealt with Catwoman, now, can I.” And with that comment, Dick actually grinned, unveiled and true and downright surprising.

 

“I feel as though we should be perfectly honest. Firstly, we both know who was dealing with _who_ in that particular arrangement and secondly,” Tim grinned lasciviously, “You _could_.” He suppressed the small urge to vomit, and begged whatever deity that cast its eye down into this hellhole of a city that Dick would _not_ deal with it that way.

 

Dick squinted at him and Tim spent a great deal of willpower keeping his smile in place. He stared long enough that Tim half expected the next words out of his mouth to be, Tim, what the fuck are you wearing.

 

“You can drop the act, Stray.” Tim replied almost instantly with a single raised eyebrow and a put-on pout.

 

“Who says I’m acting?”

 

“I do.”

 

“Well, you obviously don’t know me well enough to make that assumption.” His words were too close to home, still fitting context and coming in that low voice, but too _Tim_ for Stray. “Don’t tell me that you haven’t once pulled on the costume and felt more at home inside the spandex then you do in your own skin.”

 

“Kid, no one in our line of work can say that.”

 

“Our line of work, huh? I wasn’t aware we played for the same team.” He let the innuendo slide out, internalizing yet another shudder.

 

“Of course we do. Gotham isn’t us or them, Stray. It’s a hell of a lot more complicated than that and you know that perfectly well.”

 

“How astute.”

 

“You know, you don’t have to do this.”

 

“This?” Tim gestured wildly with one hand, allowing his claws to click off of eachother like morse, rapid and dissipating quickly against the louder sound of voices. “Again, Batman, that’s a pretty vague term.”

 

“Steal. Flirt. Fight.” Dick shrugged. “All of it, any of it.”

 

“And what if I am truly and honestly out here by choice?”

 

“Then it’s all I can do to offer you another choice, another path.” Tim froze, and Dick just carried on. “You can prove that I can trust you, and then you can come with me. You can tell me your name, and you can train, you can fight with us. No more breaking the law. I can get you anything you need, money, an escape route, a home, and I can give you a shot at a family.”

 

There was a long pause, a break of cool air and smog and distant sirens, before semi-hysterical laughter bubbled out of Tim, unbidden and loud and so obviously broken.

 

“What makes you think I’d want to join your team of beleaguered and brightly-coloured sidekicks?” He blurted, watching Dick visibly shift, surprised, and unsure. “Do you really need another kid in a yellow cape to draw fire?” Tim felt raw, as he felt the sound of his entirety snapping clean in two echo around his wide array of dark, empty places. Pearls forgotten, act forgotten, the importance of this meeting lost to the numb feeling that was coiling around his chest like a snake, threatening to asphyxiate him completely at any given moment. He continued to laugh, looking out over the city that sprawled in all direction away from the point. A city that continued to take shaky breaths, refused to die for all its cancer-ridden parts. Gotham was a circus, miraculous and almost ethereal in it’s state of suspended not-death, and if Dick was an acrobat, then Tim was a sword-swallower, never the headline, sometimes the punchline, and more skilled than any person should be at taking a knife with a smile and a flourish.

 

Tim was the punchline to a joke that Dick was completely oblivious to telling.

 

“Do you want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, Batman?” His voice was sharp, like walking across shattered glass. “I don’t want anything you can give me. And if I ever do, I’ll take it for myself. I don’t need your promises, and I don’t need your lies, and I sure as hell don’t need your fucking help.” Tim moved around Dick, who was visibly shaken. He glanced back once before taking to the next rooftop, before running from this conversation like he had a hope of escape it, and called back, letting his voice drop back into that salacious burr,

 

“How’s that for a _heart-to-heart_?”

 

*        *        *        *        *

 

Tim moved with fluidity and speed that was second-nature at this point. He couldn’t remember which direction he had taken off in, or how long ago he had left Batman scalded by the vicious quality of his words, left him alone on that rooftop.

 

He couldn’t tell if he was chasing something or just running away, Tim knew only one thing; Hiding couldn’t save him from his own mind. He was tumbling over rooftops, skin and suit scrambled across gravel and concrete, as he willed his limbs to move rather than tremble, as he ignored the sting of saltwater against the scrape he felt tightening on his left cheek.

 

Tim wasn’t Robin, Tim was Stray.

 

_Dick hadn’t recognized him._

 

Tim had a family, he had Selina, he had Jason, he had Barbara and Cass. He had Kon and Bart back from the grave, he had classes and a job and _glasses_ and _the ability to chose for himself._

 

_Dick hadn’t recognized him._

 

Tim hadn’t wanted Dick to recognize him.

 

_And Dick hadn’t recognized him._

 

Tim had succeeded, and somehow _lost_. As things always were, no victory could come to be in his life without the good being marred, ruined by the bad.

 

It was like Tim had been living his life between a set of scales: His reality and what he had willed into his reality. He was a thief, a criminal who more than occasionally played hero the same way a child plays house, deluded into thinking that he made up the rules. He had a mother now, a woman who smiled at him when he wasn’t looking and cared for his interests, who knew how he took his tea and when he needed coffee instead, who waited up for him and asked with sincerity in her eyes for him to be careful. He had an older brother, who cursed and smoked and bought him pizza every second time they went and killed people. He had Conner, who was another matter entirely, who no longer bid his time or hesitated to touch, who had always been unattainable in Tim’s mind, but had simply thought the same of Tim.

 

Tim wouldn’t trade any of them for the world. Tim was happy. Tim felt whole, felt like he had finally surpassed his habit of pretending.

 

But he had been stupid.

 

Naive to think that he could slip back and forth between the past and the present as if nothing had changed, as if he hadn’t changed. Each time he smiled meekly, and shrugged instead of answering a question with his hands in his pockets, every time he had slipped back into the facade of the Tim Drake that had been Batman’s Robin, the Tim Drake who had been the son of Jack, the Tim Drake who had led the Titans, the Tim Drake who had been Dick Grayson’s little brother.

 

And Tim supposed that was the key to it all. Tim had slid back and forth, pretending that Tim Drake was made of oil rather than glass, and tonight, he had watched as Stray, as Tim Drake, present-tense, as that person shattered into innumerable, warped pieces, hung suspended in the air for a brief, silent moment, and then fallen away.

 

Dick had been offering an olive branch, a kindness, to a stranger.

 

Because that is what Tim had made himself.

 

This was his doing, his one constant. The ability to _alienate_ , the ability to _destroy_.

 

It felt like the air was closing around him, clawing its own way up and out of his lungs, trying to be rid of him as a whole. He recognized, in an abstract sort of way, that he was experiencing the onset of hyperventilation.

 

He felt cold, he felt frenzied, he felt his hands shaking like leaves clinging to autumn trees in gale force winds. He felt himself losing control.

 

He stopped running.

 

Tim did not so much as sit as he did fall, but it was a controlled sort of fall, so there was that at least. He lost time against the empty, half-choked sounds that tore away from his chest at random intervals.

 

He heard steps nearby, thank god for training, but he had long since cast his goggles and gloves down beside him, and felt no particular inclination towards picking them back up, much less putting them on. He bit the back of his hand none-too-carefully and waited for the inevitable.

 

“Oh, _Kitten._ ” The term of endearment made the air catch in his throat with renewed force. He cleared his throat loudly, which did little to help the quiet sort of croak.

 

“Hey.”

 

“What’s wrong, are you hurt? What happened?” Her voice was heavy with concern but somehow still managed to be as sharp as the claws on her fingers. Tim was still practically choking, even as Selina sank to the ground beside him, placing a hand gingerly on his shoulder.

 

“‘M not hurt.”

 

“I call bullshit. What the hell happened.”

 

“ _Batman_.”

 

“Ah, I see.” She wriggled around a little until their shoulders lined up. “Did I ever tell you about the first time I met Batman, Kitten?” Tim badly tried to cover a sniffle and shook his head, no, she had not. “Bruce Wayne was a whole different breed of asshole, as I’m am a hundred percent certain you already know.” Tim snorted despite himself. Selina continued. “But Batman is in a league all his own. I met Batman on his first night out in Gotham, coincidentally, shortly after Bruce Wayne, proverbial heir to the cesspool of a kingdom in which we sit, returned from God knows where.” Tim nodded along silently, the somewhat unpleasant feelings of slowly drying tears tightening across his face.

 

“I met him on his first night out. He wasn’t Batman, and I wasn’t Catwoman, but we were both on the way there. We always were, I suppose. We fought.”

 

“Why?” The question came out a little hoarse and unbidden, but was a valid question, nonetheless.

 

“Batman had hit a girl, a girl that I had taken it upon myself to protect. She was younger than you are now, her name was Holly. We shared a room.” Tim has lived in Gotham his whole life and didn’t have to be told what happened in the dank and distressed gothic walls that rose on either side of Crime Alley. She had a slightly glazed look in her eyes, like ivory in pale light. “We fought, and it was a good fight. He got shot before things got really interesting though.” Tim blinked as Selina chuckled fondly at the memory. “Point being, Batman has had a problem from the very beginning. Sometimes, he forgets who the victim is. Sometimes, he doesn’t see the victims until after he has created them.”

 

“Batman created the world he fights now. But, Batman became more than Bruce Wayne ever could be the moment that he hit a sixteen year-old girl for selling herself to survive. The price that must be paid for creating Batman is that Batman must always exist. Unfortunately, Bruce didn’t have the resources to pay that debt in full. So, it’s fallen to his eldest son, as any crown should.” Selina stated this, facts in her eyes. They certainly sounded like fact to Tim as well. He quirked an eyebrow and spoke dryly.

 

“You make the cowl sound like a reward.” She shrugged against his shoulder.

 

“It’s power, and that’s not always rewarding. Batman has always been more crown than cowl, I think. For every King that dies, they will simply crown another. Batman has repoire, that rises and falls, but the one thing that Batman has always had, and _will_ always have, is collateral damage.”

 

Tim felt hollow. He was once that legacy, an heir to a crown that would kill him. Now, he was simply collateral. A cold, calculated, and perfectly honest way of looking at it. He did not resent Bruce for his choice, nor was he bitter towards his own choice in becoming Robin, and now, Stray. He was simply growing into a mold that had been long cast, the second he saw Robin turn head of heels four times, a promise unknowingly kept by a person who knew in that moment with unshakable certainty was Dick Grayson. Tim felt oddly at peace. The Universe gravitated towards a state of dissipation, and this is where he had always been headed. Somewhere dark. The shadow in which he existed now, however, was far kinder than many that came to mind.

 

“Dick didn’t recognize me.” He blurted out. Selina smiled at him.

 

“I figured, seeing as he isn’t here. Yelling.” Tim snorted again, but this time it actually sounded like something that could be laughter.  

 

“I guess that’s true.”

 

“Honestly, Kitten, I knew he wouldn’t recognize you if you didn’t _want_ him to. You don’t give yourself enough credit. I don’t think you ever have.”

 

“Credit for _what?_ ”

 

“You haven’t been caught. You save people. You look _great_ in a catsuit.” She listed with humour in her voice and a light wink. Tim punched her lightly on the arm.

 

“I learned it from the best.”

 

“Between Bruce and I, you certainly did.” Her smile turned a little soft, a little sad. “He’d be proud of you, if he were around.”

 

“I think he might soil his expensive suit first. Not specifying which suit, either.” Selina laughed, and Tim joined in.

 

“Well, more importantly, I’m proud of you, kiddo. I couldn’t have asked for a better partner, and now that I’ve got you, I’m not giving you back.” She had slipped an arm around his shoulders, and was gripping him in a sort of half-hug. For some reason, it didn’t feel as awkward as it sounds. A very particular sort of warmth had settled in his stomach. Proud. Tim gave a small smile with his reply.

 

“Okay.”

 

“So how about we go home, I’ll make coffee instead of tea, you can pretend not to taste the Kahlua, and I’ll let you pick the first movie.” Tim laughed again, and knew that he would be okay, before he replied,

 

“ _Selina_ ,” He gasped with put-on dramatics. “It’s illegal for minors to consume alcohol.” Selina faked a swoon,

 

“Dear _God_!” They both giggled. “You’ll be eighteen soon anyways.”

 

“The legal drinking age is twenty one.” He informed her, voice fake-stern.

 

“Close your eyes and pretend we’re in Canada.” She wiggled her fingers at him and beamed. He laughed in return before getting to his feet. The weight of Martha Wayne’s pearls was dismissed. Tim would save them for a better time, _soon,_ but better.

 

“Sounds perfect.”

 

And it really did.


End file.
